Leap 16.0 system upgrade experience 0001

I performed the upgrade from Leap 15.6 on the 13th of October 2025 – after the Leap 16.0 Packman repository became available.

On this (current) system:

Operating System: openSUSE Leap 16.0
KDE Plasma Version: 6.4.2
KDE Frameworks Version: 6.16.0
Qt Version: 6.9.1
Kernel Version: 6.12.0-160000.5-default (64-bit)
Graphics Platform: Wayland
Processors: 8 × AMD Ryzen 5 3400G with Radeon Vega Graphics
Memory: 32 GiB of RAM (29.3 GiB usable)
Graphics Processor: AMD Radeon Vega 11 Graphics
Manufacturer: ASUS
  1. Followed the instructions in the “SDB:System upgrade” document.
  2. Before performing the upgrade, got rid of my Oracle VirtualBox VMs – including a Windows 10 VM –
    Experienced a complete system hang during the deletion of my Microsoft account – had to use the magic SysRq sequence to reboot – more later.
    Removed the virtualbox package.
  3. Used the “opensuse-migration-tool” “dry-run” to check if “all OK” – nothing not OK found.
    In addition to the “openSUSE” repositories –
    repo-oss; repo-non-oss; repo-openh264 [the ones which move to cdn.opensuse.org with Leap 16]
    I also had the following repositories enabled:
    Build_Service:_PHP:_Applications; Packman Essentials; Graphics_Project; Hardware:Tools; KDE:Extra; Multimedia:Libs; Security_project; VideoLAN_libdvdcss
  4. Performed the upgrade – the Migration Tool didn’t offer the option to use SELinux – the “dry-run” did …
  5. During the upgrade, after the RPM package was upgraded, the following rpm error was being reported in /var/log/zypp/history:
    “error: Key 70af9e8139db7c82 (SuSE Package Signing Key build@suse.de) expired on 2024-09-20 10:21:47”
  6. RPM refused to erase the “apache2-mod_php7” package – more below …
  7. The system rebooted into Leap 16 and allowed a KDE Plasma 6 Wayland login.

Clean-up after the upgrade:

  • “zypper verify” failed, stopped with an error, didn’t do anything because of “apache2-mod_php7”
    Finally solved it by manually deleting the files in the package and then using “rpm --erase --justdb apache2-mod_php7”.
    Maybe, if I had executed “rpm --rebuilddb” before the upgrade, the issue wouldn’t have appeared.

  • The “SuSE Package Signing Key” issue also disappeared after cleaning up the Apache(2) PHP7 issue …

I then went through the “rpmconfigcheck”; “zypper verify”; “zypper packages unneeded|orphaned|system” exercises.

The system is currently running fine – I did have some “new experiences” with the change from KDE Plasma 5 on X11 to KDE Plasma 6 on Wayland – but, nothing really dramatic …

  • The newest digiKam is running fine.
  • A Java based Home Banking and Club Management application is running fine.
  • LibreOffice is running fine.
  • Mozilla Firefox and Google Chromium are both behaving correctly.

KDE Kontact KOrganizer has an issue: <https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=510605>

  • I’m waiting for the newer KDE Plasma 6 version to appear on Leap 16 –
    Everything else in the KDE PIM is running fine – only the “To-Do list” is misbehaving …

The system hang mentioned above – is:

Okt 20 17:43:19 kernel: amdgpu 0000:07:00.0: amdgpu: Dumping IP State
Okt 20 17:43:46 kernel: watchdog: BUG: soft lockup - CPU#5 stuck for 27s! [ksystemstats:80460]

I suspect that, this was also the cause of the hang on Leap 15.6, which has become more apparent with the Leap 16 Kernel.

  • There seems to be some Work-In-Progress for the AMD GPU microcode and, there seems to be a new BIOS version for the Asus Mainboard being worked on.
    I’m waiting with baited breath for both Firmware changes to become available.
    If they don’t, I’ll probably have to purchase a new Mainboard and CPU/GPU …

Current Leap 16.0 repositories:

#  | Alias                            | Name                                     | Enabled | GPG Check | Refresh
---+----------------------------------+------------------------------------------+---------+-----------+--------
 1 | Build_Service:_PHP:_Applications | openSUSE BuildService - PHP:Applications | Yes     | (r ) Yes  | Yes
 2 | Essentials                       | Packman Repository - Essentials          | Yes     | (r ) Yes  | Yes
 3 | Graphics_Project                 | Graphics Project                         | Yes     | (r ) Yes  | Yes
 4 | Hardware:Tools                   | Hardware tools                           | Yes     | (r ) Yes  | Yes
 5 | KDE:Extra                        | KDE: Extra                               | Yes     | (r ) Yes  | Yes
 6 | Mozilla                          | Mozilla OBS Project                      | No      | ----      | ----
 7 | Multimedia:Apps                  | Multimedia: Apps                         | No      | ----      | ----
 8 | Multimedia:Libs                  | Multimedia: Libs                         | Yes     | (r ) Yes  | Yes
 9 | Security_project                 | Security project                         | Yes     | (r ) Yes  | Yes
10 | VideoLAN_libdvdcss               | VideoLAN - libdvdcss                     | Yes     | (r ) Yes  | Yes
11 | openSUSE:repo-non-oss            | repo-non-oss (16.0)                      | Yes     | (r ) Yes  | Yes
12 | openSUSE:repo-non-oss-debug      | repo-non-oss-debug (16.0)                | Yes     | (r ) Yes  | Yes
13 | openSUSE:repo-openh264           | repo-openh264 (16.0)                     | Yes     | (r ) Yes  | Yes
14 | openSUSE:repo-oss                | repo-oss (16.0)                          | Yes     | (r ) Yes  | Yes
15 | openSUSE:repo-oss-debug          | repo-oss-debug (16.0)                    | Yes     | (r ) Yes  | Yes
16 | openSUSE:repo-oss-source         | repo-oss-source (16.0)                   | No      | ----      | ----
17 | openSUSE_Virtulization           | openSUSE Virtualization                  | No      | ----      | ----

Current sysctl changes in /etc/sysctl.d/

net.ipv4.ip_forward = 0
net.ipv6.conf.all.forwarding = 0
net.ipv6.conf.all.disable_ipv6 = 0
kernel.sysrq = 1
net.ipv4.tcp_syncookies = 1
kernel.io_uring_disabled = 1

The “io_uring” issue was discussed here: <Kernel call interface “io_uring” - due to security issues, to disable it or, not?>

I subscribed to the KDE repos post-install and upgraded, now running Plasma 6.5.

@deano_ferrari:

Hi Dean.
I followed the instructions here – <SDB:KDE repositories>
Rebooted, logged in and, was still on Plasma version 6.4.2.
With Myrlyn tried to “Switch system packages” to the versions in the KDE repositories – encountered a massive number of package conflicts messages … :roll_eyes:
And, the current digiKam and gpxsee packages were incompatible with the newer KDE Plasma version(s).
At the worst case, I couldn’t login to a KDE Plasma session …
Rolled everything back again and will continue waiting – and, will try to investigate for the reason why it didn’t work as expected … :pensive:

Your repo list showed only KDE:Extra present? I have

1 | KDE-Applications                     | KDE-Applications                                                     | Yes     | (r ) Yes  | Yes     | -    |   75     | rpm-md | https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/KDE:/Applications/KDE_Frameworks5_openSUSE_Leap_16.0 | 
 2 | KDE-Extra                            | KDE-Extra                                                            | Yes     | (r ) Yes  | Yes     | -    |   75     | rpm-md | https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/KDE:/Extra/KDE_Applications_openSUSE_Leap_16.0       | 
 3 | KDE-Frameworks                       | KDE-Frameworks                                                       | Yes     | (r ) Yes  | Yes     | -    |   74     | rpm-md | https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/KDE:/Frameworks/openSUSE_Leap_16.0                   | 
 4 | KDE-Qt6                              | KDE-Qt6                                                              | Yes     | (r ) Yes  | Yes     | -    |   74     | rpm-md | https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/KDE:/Qt6/openSUSE_Leap_16.0    
~> kinfo
Operating System: openSUSE Leap 16.0
KDE Plasma Version: 6.5.0
KDE Frameworks Version: 6.19.0
Qt Version: 6.10.0
Kernel Version: 6.12.0-160000.5-default (64-bit)

I followed the instructions in the SDB “KDE Repositories” – current Leap 16.0 repositories are:

#  | Alias                            | Name                                     | Enabled | GPG Check | Refresh
---+----------------------------------+------------------------------------------+---------+-----------+--------
 1 | Build_Service:_PHP:_Applications | openSUSE BuildService - PHP:Applications | Yes     | (r ) Yes  | Yes
 2 | Essentials                       | Packman Repository - Essentials          | Yes     | (r ) Yes  | Yes
 3 | Graphics_Project                 | Graphics Project                         | Yes     | (r ) Yes  | Yes
 4 | Hardware:Tools                   | Hardware tools                           | Yes     | (r ) Yes  | Yes
 5 | KDE-Applications                 | KDE-Applications                         | No      | ----      | ----
 6 | KDE-Frameworks                   | KDE-Frameworks                           | No      | ----      | ----
 7 | KDE-Qt6                          | KDE-Qt6                                  | No      | ----      | ----
 8 | KDE:Extra                        | KDE: Extra                               | Yes     | (r ) Yes  | Yes
 9 | Mozilla                          | Mozilla OBS Project                      | No      | ----      | ----
10 | Multimedia:Apps                  | Multimedia: Apps                         | No      | ----      | ----
11 | Multimedia:Libs                  | Multimedia: Libs                         | Yes     | (r ) Yes  | Yes
12 | Security_project                 | Security project                         | Yes     | (r ) Yes  | Yes
13 | VideoLAN_libdvdcss               | VideoLAN - libdvdcss                     | Yes     | (r ) Yes  | Yes
14 | openSUSE:repo-non-oss            | repo-non-oss (16.0)                      | Yes     | (r ) Yes  | Yes
15 | openSUSE:repo-non-oss-debug      | repo-non-oss-debug (16.0)                | Yes     | (r ) Yes  | Yes
16 | openSUSE:repo-openh264           | repo-openh264 (16.0)                     | Yes     | (r ) Yes  | Yes
17 | openSUSE:repo-oss                | repo-oss (16.0)                          | Yes     | (r ) Yes  | Yes
18 | openSUSE:repo-oss-debug          | repo-oss-debug (16.0)                    | Yes     | (r ) Yes  | Yes
19 | openSUSE:repo-oss-source         | repo-oss-source (16.0)                   | No      | ----      | ----
20 | openSUSE_Virtulization           | openSUSE Virtualization                  | No      | ----      | ----

With Leap 16, the Qt5 and Framework 5 repositories are not valid – no Leap 16 directory …
<https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/KDE:/Qt5/>
<https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/KDE:/Frameworks5/>


I notice in another thread that, the first Leap 16.0 updates are due to be released in a day or two or three … :upside_down_face:

I only used the four I mentioned and all seems to be fine.

Further changes:

  • I moved from AppArmor to SELinux by following this openSUSE Portal instruction: Portal:SELinux/Setup.
    No problems or issues – everything is functioning as expected …

  • The KDE KOrganizer To-Do View issue has been resolved as follows:
    Backed up all the local e-Mail, contacts, appointments and to-dos and journals and, the Akregator feeds.
    Removed all the configuration files, local data files and, the Akonadi directory.
    Started from (PIM) scratch – first restored the KOrganizer items, then the KAddressbook entries, the the Akregator feeds, and then restored the KMail configuration and local files.

The KOrganizer To-Do issue was resolved and, I now have a fresh KDE PIM environment.

  • I noticed that, the KDE Akonadi database is now using SQLite rather than MariaDB –
    There’s a mention of the move here: <KDE UserBase Wiki: Akonadi>

And, further down the page, this:

How do I switch from MySQL/PostgreSQL to SQLite?

Since Akonadi 6 akonadi-db-migrator is included in akonadi that allows you to switch the database backend. Where for previous versions this involved deleting and recreating the database a migration is now properly supported by akonadi.

Unfortunately, this migration doesn’t seem to be automated – it has to be manually executed.

Whether or not, I could have been spared the effort of a “delete/restore” upgrade of the KDE PIM is a moot point …

  • Never mind, I now have a “clean” KDE PIM environment.

No further progress on the AMD GPU issue – I haven’t yet purchased new hardware …

Wayland, LibreOffice and Mozilla Firefox HiDPI scaling issues:

There’s this Nate Graham article: Fix LibreOffice Scaling Issues on Linux.

Basically, you have to add this Environment parameter to each and every LibreOffice entry in the KDE Plasma Application Launcher – the “program starter” –

  • QT_QPA_PLATFORM=xcb

For Firefox, there’s this ArcLinux Wiki article: ArchWiki: HiDPI – Firefox

  • In the Firefox “about:config” set the following parameters:
    widget.wayland.fractional-scale.enabled == true
    layout.css.devPixelsPerPx == -1.0

In the user’s ‘~/.profile’ file, the following environment variable has to be set:

if [ "$XDG_SESSION_TYPE" == "wayland" ]; then
    export MOZ_ENABLE_WAYLAND=1
fi

And, there’s a couple of changes in the default user login directory files:

 # LANG=C ls -lR /usr/etc/skel/
/usr/etc/skel/:
total 36
-rw-r-----. 1 root root  604 Mar 10  2025 .bashrc
drwx------. 2 root root 4096 Jan 28  2025 .cache
drwx------. 2 root root 4096 Jan 28  2025 .config
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root 1637 Apr 29  2025 .emacs
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root  599 Sep  1  2022 .i18n
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root  861 Apr 29  2025 .inputrc
drwx------. 5 root root 4096 Oct 13 16:18 .local
-rw-r-----. 1 root root  856 Mar 10  2025 .profile
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root 1951 Sep  1  2022 .xim.template

/usr/etc/skel/.cache:
total 0

/usr/etc/skel/.config:
total 0

/usr/etc/skel/.local:
total 12
drwx------. 2 root root 4096 Jan 28  2025 bin
drwx------. 3 root root 4096 Oct 13 16:18 share
drwx------. 2 root root 4096 Jan 28  2025 state

/usr/etc/skel/.local/bin:
total 0

/usr/etc/skel/.local/share:
total 4
drwx------. 2 root root 4096 Jan 28  2025 fonts

/usr/etc/skel/.local/share/fonts:
total 0

/usr/etc/skel/.local/state:
total 0
 #

For those folks who haven’t moved to SELinux, the “.” at the right hand end of each file’s mode bit list is indicating the file has a security context.