Long Term Support

English Open Chat
#21

KDE version of 12.2 has been a good release for me, and still is. It’s the first release I managed to a 64bit only objective. Any 32bit stuff and other legacy apps I retained on 11.4 Evergreen (Gnome 2 here).

The default boot process of 12.2 is not it’s greatest asset, even using Grub Legacy, and even though I haven’t had any real problems with it. It was certainly fragile at the beginning, and 12.2 seems to have had a lot of maintenance updates applied to it. Indeed, it was an interim implementation of systemd, and that was also mentioned on the mailing list as a disadvantage wrt Evergreen. For a small team, a history of high maintenance increases the risk for future instability. Would you buy a second-hand car with a high maintenance history? Yes, it probably has been taken care of, but was it ever fit for purpose and will it be in future?

One might expect the last release of a series to be a better candidate e.g. 11.4, and possibly 12.3 with its apparent performance improvements but yet to be proven stability.

#22

On 03/27/2013 12:36 PM, knightron wrote:
> Opensuse gives me to many
> updates for my liking, even when i’m doing zypper patch,

but but, zypper patch only gives security and necessary bug
fixes…how could there possibly be too many? well, unless you wish
to use known vulnerable software…

that said, i use 11.4 Evergreen and like it a lot…i haven’t counted
the patches but there have been one or two per week since it rolled
into Evergreen…

here, you can count them yourself by checking which since 5 Nov 2012
are for openSUSE 11.4 from among these: http://tinyurl.com/cdgus6e

–
dd
http://tinyurl.com/DD-Software

#23

On 2013-03-27 14:36, consused wrote:

> One might expect the last release of a series to be a better candidate
> e.g. 11.4, and possibly 12.3 with its apparent performance improvements
> but yet to be proven stability.

There is no such thing as “the last release of a series” in openSUSE.
There is no “series” at all. The numbering is predefined to be 11.1,
11.2, 11.3, 11.4, 12.1, 12.2, 12.3, 13.1, 13.2, 13.3, etc, forever.
There is no significance at all to the numbers. There were other
variants that were considered and voted, such as a simple 13, 14, 15, or
year.month.

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 12.1 x86_64 “Asparagus” at Telcontar)

#24

On 2013-03-27 12:36, knightron wrote:

> Hi guys, i’m really pleased to have found this topic. I was just hoping
> to hear from some users who’ve used evergree, how does evergree compare
> with Debian stable.

I have not used Debian stable.

> I’m using Slackware at the moment, but i really like Opensuse, but also
> like debians stable release, but dislike other things about Debian. In
> particular i’d like to know about updates. Opensuse gives me to many
> updates for my liking, even when i’m doing zypper patch, but Debian and
> Slackware give me very little. So as i said, how’s Evergreen compare
> with Debian stable?

Patches is what Evergreen does, only that. And limited because of
limited resources.

Some repositories keep also an evergreen version, voluntarily (like
packman), or simply do not delete the old 11.4. There is no guarantee
that they will maintain that 11.4 version. Some repositories delete
their 11.4 version completely.

(I mention 11.4 because I use 11.4 evergreen in my laptop)

For example, if you were using 11.4 with some advanced kde or gnome
repo, it is very possible that those repos disappear and you are left
out stranded and have to downgrade to the default original version.

So yes, choice is diminished and problematic.

For example, I use “unison” to keep folders in sync between my 11.4
evergreen and 12.1. If I go searching for it here:


http://software.opensuse.org/package/unison?search_term=unison

The first thing you notice is that 11.4 does not even appear in the
search box. You have to click on “Show more packages for unsupported
distributions”, but 11.4 is supported!

Then, still looking at “unison”, you can see that the versions offered
are on mostly home repos:

devel:languages:ocaml 2.40.102
home:vodoo 2.40.63
home:weberho:server 2.40.63
official release 2.32.52

If you compare with 12.1, we see more repos, specially these:

network 2.40.102
official release 2.40.63

That is, the 11.4 network repo has been removed (and I was using it).
That’s just a sample, but it means I have to be careful not to update
unison in my 12.1 desktop, because this program has an history of
failing to connect two different versions. I may have problems when I
have to upgrade my desktop to 12.3.

Another problematic package for me is Lazarus, from the
“devel:languages:pascal”. There is no 11.4 repo.

Just a few samples.

Evergreen is a very praiseworthy project, IMNSHO. But not the entire
openSUSE project feel that way and some pull the matt under it. :-/

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 12.1 x86_64 “Asparagus” at Telcontar)

#25

I’ve heard that before. Why 4 point releases in 11, was it the last? Is the goal now just 3 point releases
per major number? What causes the major number to change, if anything?

I suspect the devs have some method in the madness, even if they don’t pre-announce it. :smiley:

#26

On 2013-03-27 16:16, consused wrote:

>> There is no such thing as “the last release of a series” in openSUSE.
>> There is no “series” at all. The numbering is predefined to be 11.1,
>> 11.2, 11.3, 11.4, 12.1, 12.2, 12.3, 13.1, 13.2, 13.3, etc, forever.
>> There is no significance at all to the numbers. There were other
>> variants that were considered and voted, such as a simple 13, 14, 15,
>> or year.month.
> I’ve heard that before. Why 4 point releases in 11, was it the last?

It was an exception when the numbering system was decided. I don’t
remember the exact reason, but it is archived somewhere in the project
mail list, I think.

It started here:


> <http://lizards.opensuse.org/2011/03/11/how-to-name-the-distribution-releases/>
> <http://wiki.opensuse.org/User:Vuntz/openSUSE_versioning_scheme>

Is
the goal now just 3 point releases
per major number? What causes the major number to change, if anything?

There are no major nor minor numbers. The numbers are just numbers that
change in the voted sequence I posted before.

I suspect the devs have some method in the madness, even if they don’t
pre-announce it. :smiley:

But it is announced, and voted upon.


Date: Tue, 6 Jul 2010 15:54:21 +0200
From: Michael Loeffler <...@novell.com>
To: opensuse-project at opensuse.org
Subject: [opensuse-project] Re: openSUSE versioning scheme (was Re:
[opensuse-factory] Re: [opensuse-buildservice] Can we please get ARM
builds for 11.3+1?)


and


Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2011 09:34:14 +0100
From: Andreas Jaeger <...@novell.com>
To: opensuse-project at opensuse.org
Subject: [opensuse-project] How to name our releases?

and a few more.

You can read it all in the archive… they are long threads.

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 12.1 x86_64 “Asparagus” at Telcontar)

#27

On 03/27/2013 04:16 PM, consused wrote:
> What causes the major number to change, if anything?

the march of time, only.

–
dd

#28

Well based on what you posted before, and excluding 11.4, the “whole” number increments by one after the “fraction” reaches “.3”.

> I suspect the devs have some method in the madness, even if they don’t
> pre-announce it. :smiley:

But it is announced, and voted upon.

To be much clearer, I was referring to the release content chosen (or even planned) for each next version. It seems that history will be the judge, and personal experience of course. Mine so far: 11.4 better than previous, 12.1 below par (also Gnome 3 poor), 12.2 much improved (also Gnome 3), and 12.3 awaits the march of time.

You can read it all in the archive… they are long threads.

As @dd pointed out, “time marches”, so thanks but no thanks. :slight_smile:

#29

Personally i think the version numbers of openSUSE is done with a magic 8 ball :wink:

#30

With regards to the repositories of discontinued releases being taken offline/no longer available, that can easily be solved (if you have the bandwidth and storage capacity) by downloading a local copy of the repos that you might need for your release, if you plan on using that release past the support period. You can easily do this with the excellent jdmcdaniel3](https://forums.opensuse.org/members/jdmcdaniel3.html) SLRC script. The script (and his other excellent scripts, in his signature) can be found here: https://forums.opensuse.org/blogs/jdmcdaniel3/s-l-r-c-suse-local-repository-creator-version-1-25-now-packman-opensuse-12-2-12-3-59/ Modify the script for your own repos. Outstanding work, yet again, by jdmcdaniel3](https://forums.opensuse.org/members/jdmcdaniel3.html) Many thanks to his great work. Using this method of having a local copy of the repositories you might need for your given release, there is absolutely no reason why you can’t keep using any release well past it’s support period, regardless of whether it’s Evergreen or not. Sure, it may not get “security updates” after the support period, and I put that in quotes because if you know what you’re doing then you should be absolutely fine without it. Unless of course you have really bad habits or are somehow particularly venerable to security flaws. Just use common sense, which one probably has if they are using SUSE anyway :slight_smile:

#31

On 2013-03-27 18:36, consused wrote:
> To be much clearer, I was referring to the release content chosen (or
> even planned) for each next version.

Ah.

For that, you have to read carefully both the project and factory mail
lists. There are talks about what they would like to do (they are
starting about now for the next release). As the release date is also
fixed in advance for years to come (theory) the teams also know what
release they can put. For example, if the gnome devs say they are going
to release gnome 4 in two months, it will very probably be added. If
they say it will be out in 7 months, then certainly not. Similarly for
things like kernel version and glib.

Whether the end result is that X1.Y1 is better or worse than X2.Y2 is
chance. Or a combination of many factors.

> Gnome 3), and 12.3 awaits the march of time.

12.3 has a big problem starting to appear: bad coding in some
mathematical functions that make some code run even twice as long. There
is a thread on this in the programming subforum.

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 12.1 x86_64 “Asparagus” at Telcontar)

#32

On 2013-03-27 19:56, 2XL wrote:
> With regards to the repositories of discontinued releases being taken
> offline/no longer available, that can easily be solved (if you have the
> bandwidth and storage capacity) by downloading a local copy of the repos
> that you might need for your release, if you plan on using that release
> past the support period.

Which is not the case… we are not past the support period, 11.4 is a
supported version. The support does not come from SUSE, but from a group
of volunteers.

A local repository only helps me, not the rest of Evergreen users out there.

(and yes, it happens I do keep local copies of the rpms I use).

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 12.1 x86_64 “Asparagus” at Telcontar)

#33

It was general advice, not specific just to 11.4 :slight_smile: Also, local repos can help anyone on any release, even when still in support (no Internet etc).

#34

for standard desktop use I don’t mind that OpenSuse doesn’t have a long term support version.

I have done a couple online upgrades of OpenSuse on my system without having to do a new install, and zypper handles it quite well for many people. So outside of the Evergreen option for people that want a version of OpenSuse to last longer for a server, or they just don’t want to upgrade.

Outside of that small market many people will find less issues with an ugrade of OpenSuse compared to how it used to be even 5 years or 10 years ago when an upgrade meant more chance of a few things not working when you reinstalled from DVD