Is having openSUSE-repos-Tumbleweed a good idea?

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I have Tumbleweed on a desktop, installed about 2 years ago; and on a laptop, installed a few months ago.

The laptops installation started to “preload” right away with the first run of zypper dup. The desktop still did not a few months later. Reading this topic: Preloading Updates question - #4 by myswtest and especially the reply Preloading Updates question - #5 by OrsoBruno I installed openSUSE-repos-Tumbleweed on the Desktop now and wait for a new update to come around and see.

Neither the Laptop nor Desktop had openSUSE-repos-Tumbleweed installed. The more recently installed Tumbleweed on the Laptop simply seemed to come with the change by default.

I tried to find more about openSUSE-repos-Tumbleweed but not much came up. There is this rather interesting Topic: Problems with zypper and Yast repository after update The first reply says:

Can you perform a sudo zypper in openSUSE-repos-Tumbleweed
This will install fresh repo definitions. A restart/logout may be required to properly show the fresh repos in YaST repositories afterwards.

Simply installing fresh repo definitions does not seem the only thing openSUSE-repos-Tumbleweed does, hence my qustions:

What is the purpose of openSUSE-repos-Tumbleweed (any links to documentation? it is not mentioned here: Portal:Tumbleweed - openSUSE Wiki)?

Is there a reason why openSUSE-repos-Tumbleweed does not come with tumbleweed by default and hence should not be installed manually either?

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There was a communication in the news already a long time ago. It eases repository mangemenet for new and unexperineced users, as it comes with the official and predifined sets of repos, manged by a service. As new users easily screw up their repo list (see forum), this new packages try to eliminate the risk to loose/screw the official repo set easily.

Users of Nvidia hardware have the advantage that the repo definitions get installed automatically.
There is no risk to your system by installing the packages.

The advantage of these packages is, that the openSUSE devs can easily enroll new zypper features like preloading which boosts the overall performance. With manually added (conventionell) repo sets , this wouldn’t be so easy and flawlessly.

The packages are official, maintained and distributed by openSUSE. As with every other package, the
system adminstrator/user is free to use or install it.

3

Thank you for the link.

From Preloading Updates question - #5 by OrsoBruno i understand openSUSE-repos-Tumbleweed also modified zypper to download in parallel. From my limited understanding, that does not seem like a task related to repositories only, but a change in the configuration of zypper?

Is there a reason why openSUSE-repos-Tumbleweed is not installed by default and hence I should uninstall it again from my desktop?

My concern is: Would I ever have gotten the parallel download feature without having openSUSE-repos-Tumbleweed installed (other than messing with configurations files manually)?

4

I just saw your edit, thank you for the clarification. I will leave it installed on the desktop add it on the laptop.

I would still be curious about:

Would I ever have gotten the parallel download feature without having openSUSE-repos-Tumbleweed installed (other than messing with configurations files manually)?

Edit: I see that openSUSE-repos-Tumbleweedconflicts with open-SUSE-repos-MicroOS. Is it save to uninstall open-SUSE-repos-MicroOS to resolve the conflict? My desktop installation did not have this issue.

5

As long as the openSUSE devs do not roll out the new zypper features in other ways, you need to use environment variables or need to adapt config files yourself.

And there was a lot of communication in the news and mailing lists in the last weeks, that the new download accelerators are only fully functional by using new zypper versions and the above mentioned packages. Else you would need to tinker yourself with different settings and configs.

The package naming is self explanatory. You need to install the one which matches your openSUSE flavor.

6

Thank you again for the clarifications.

I had read the RSS feed Zypper Adds Experimental Parallel Download by Douglas DeMaio from 27.03.2025 08.59. My intention was to not enable the feature manually and wait until it becomes the default. The discrepancy between the laptop and desktop installations triggered some concern:

  1. I did not think that Preloading is the parallel download feature in action. I simply thought this must be a modification in how zyppershows its download progress from now on. After all, parallel downlaoding is experimental and would not show up in a fresh installation yet.
  2. If zypper on a fresh installation is different I surely have just not yet updated recently enough on the the desktop.
  3. After a month, I was certain that i have zypper dup’ed on the desktop several times :confused: .
  4. After two months: Time to read online… So it is the parallel download thing :open_mouth: !? I did not enable it manually. The laptop did not have openSUSE-repos-Tumbleweed installed (but instead open-SUSE-repos-MicroOS??? Nevermind.)

There is always a reason for discrepancies. In this case, an experimental feature is enabled in new installations of Tumbleweed. Older installations need manual modifications or simply having openSUSE-repos-Tumbleweed installed and updated (looking forward to see if that worked :slight_smile: ).

If I understood everything correctly, mystery solved.

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