I’ve never used a rolling release so I’m curious about how users manage a rolling release. Lets say you update and install all new packages, and you gain a new bug that breaks a crucial application that you use at work every day. Is there a way to revert back to a previous version that didn’t have that bug?
Depends on whether the previous package is still available in the repos. Normally when a package i going to be updated it comes from the repos “repo-update” or “repo-update-non-oss”. The original versions shipped with the release are still in the repos “repo-oss” and “repo-non-oss”. So you can downgrade to that versions with
zypper in -f <oldpackage-version>
You can look which package versions are available from what repo with
zypper wp <packagename>
Since zypper-1.8.11 (12.3) there is new option for install command, called “–oldpackage”
Awesome. I’m guessing that would rollback dependencies as well?
On 03/29/2013 03:36 PM, actionM88 wrote:
> I’ve never used a rolling release so I’m curious about how users manage
> a rolling release. Lets say you update and install all new packages,
> and you gain a new bug that breaks a crucial application that you use at
> work every day.
personally, i would never put Tumbleweed on a computer i need for
work every day!
you do realize that the software will be less tested, less stable
and more cutting edge than the latest general release, right?
anyway, i see you have been here less than a week so i would humbly
suggest it might be better to become more familiar with openSUSE
before you move to newer.
but, of course it is your machine and your job–do as you wish but
read carefully the stuff written about Tumbleweed here:
http://tinyurl.com/69mj3zj
–
dd
I haven’t used the option --oldpackage, yet. But try it out. You’ll get informed by zypper what he plans to do and waits for your confirmation.
Good advice. I’m not touching my current system. It’s so perfect right now lol. I’ve never had a distro this stable. I’ll be running other distro’s and tumbleweed in virtualbox. I’ve just always wandered how users maintain a rolling release.
Crucial applications [at work] should be run on a system known for its stability. To be sure of stability, you would need to run it for much longer than a few weeks, and apply only the most essential maintenance. That lower level of maintenance would probably rule out Tumbleweed for crucial work applications.
Having said that, you may find that using YaST Software Management is good graphical way of learning about the facilities available. For example you can see at a glance which versions of a package and its updates are still available in the repos, by just clicking on the Versions tab. Click on a version’s radio button, click on Accept, and you are reverted with resolved dependencies. If there were any dependency conflicts you will get a message, and given some options to choose from.
On 03/29/2013 04:56 PM, actionM88 wrote:
> I’ve just always wandered
> how users maintain a rolling release.
first it is not really a “rolling release” as that term is generally
used, in fact on that page i pointed you to it is called a “rolling
updates version of openSUSE”
and, in fact, so far each time a version of openSUSE is released the
Tumbleweed users are subjected to a wholesale change to the new
release, and then the “rolling updates” starts again…
like, right now the repos for 12.3 and Tumbleweed are identical and
they will stay that way until the (only) maintainer of Tumbleweed
decides what new stuff will be pulled out of factory and placed into
Tumbleweed…
but, your “how do i maintain a rolling updates version of openSUSE”
question is also answered on that one page…and the two stickies
at the top of the Tumbleweed forum:
http://forums.opensuse.org/english/get-technical-help-here/tumbleweed/
and, whatever musings have occurred in the Factory mail list…
please don’t get the idea i don’t like Tumbleweed, i do! i think it
is a great place to proof-test new software…
Using a rolling release will usually and significantly increase your maintenance overhead, in quantity and frequency of updates. That is no different with Tumbleweed.
After re-basing your system on the new standard openSUSE release, you will be applying standard updates. About a month after re-basing, Tumbleweed repo begins to get package updates. Those will continue to be applied in addition to any standard updates. You should expect Tumbleweed to upgrade the kernel, and others including some large suites of packages e.g LibreOffice, and KDE, plus their dependencies. IIRC, LibreOffice was one of the more frequent upgrades, and possibly the kernel.
If you use Packman as an additional repo for Tumbleweed, even on the standard release it seems to have weekly updates, you will have those as well.
By the time the next standard release arrives, Tumbleweed has overtaken it wrt levels on many packages (e.g. KDE when 12.2 was new). Hence the re-base experience, involving the downgrading of a large number of packages, plus many upgrades and new packages to be installed.
For running Tumbleweed in a VM, make sure you allow for more disk space than you would for standard openSUSE.
A partition of 10GB is too small for Tumbleweed, so I would allow for 15 to 20GB, more if you keep a large /home within the same partition.
Thanks for all the responses. Very good info from everyone! I’ll start reviewing all the links everyone gave asap. Sounds like, I probably shouldn’t use tumble weed to get work done. It does sound like I may should install it on my laptop and have some fun! Thanks all!