HI,
I used Arch for a long time, but I was looking for a more stable distro with fewer problems. I’ve been thinking about it for a while and I recently installed Tumbleweed and I think it’s great now with plasma6.
I also used plasma with Arch, but I never used Discover,
in fact I read that it can interfere with the proper functioning of zypper.
So I uninstalled both Discover and PackageKit using only zypper for updates.
Everything works fine.
Do you think I did well?
3 Likes
@sao Hi and welcome to the Forum 
FWIW, I do the same on GNOME here, packagekit and gnome-software are all disabled… I’m happy with the command line tools, oh and to manually update the few flatpaks I have installed.
2 Likes
I have been using opensuse for years now and usually use zypper dup or yasr. A couple of years ago, on a back-up computer, i have been using kde neon and became familiar with discover. Once or twice, on opensuse when there has been problems (usually of my own making) with zypper dup and yast - it has been handy having discover, to fall back on.
1 Like
I use zypper dup daily (run it first).
For Flatpaks, I [then] use Discover.
1 Like
I’m good with just zypper dup.
1 Like
The difference is Discover actually respects your config not to check for updates automatically.
Gnome Software, at least on my machine did not. It would always check for updates when booting up or un-suspending from sleep. Uninstalled it.
For searching flatpak (if I don’t know what I’m looking for) I use flathub website. flatpak CLI should learn how to do proper search from zypper 
2 Likes
Here’s a bug I’ve been getting since updating to Plasma 6. 481993 – Discover fails to launch after upgrade to Neon 6.0
1 Like
Absolutely did fine! Tumbleweed == zypper dup.
Discover is convenient for installing Flatpaks, otherwise, dup.
1 Like
I never had any problems with the updater widget on opensuse back on Plasma 5. After the update to Plasma 6 it seems we switched to Discover and it’s been a bit wonky in my experience so far, but I’ve never had any problems with it on Debian.
I think there’s no harm in uninstalling Discover if you have no use for it, but recommending against such a basic utility as an updater feels weird to me.
(By the way, a few weeks ago, a ton of users had issues updating to Plasma 6 because they did it in a terminal window and the update killed the Plasma session (and thus the terminal (and thus the update process)). Correct me if I’m wrong here, but I remember one of users claiming they did the upgrade from the updater widget and they didn’t have any issues)
Updater widget works via PackageKit which runs as a system service outside of user session. So killing user session did not impact PackageKit transaction in any way.
1 Like
Seems like a reason to prefer packagekit over zypper dup
Ugh, yes, something about the whole flatpak CLI interface just feels clunky. Search is one thing, display of permissions is another (both the arcane ways that new app permissions are displayed during installation, and how to manage existing ones).
I’m sure it’s very low priority given how much GUI app stores and the website are the focus of Flatpak, but flatpak for my money is more painful to interact with than any other CLI package management tool (having used apt, dnf, pacman, zypper, eopkg and snap).
1 Like
There is no absolute black and absolute white. PackageKit will happily kill itself when PackageKit is updated (at least, it did it when I used DE applets. Do not know if it is fixed in the meantime).
Besides, there are other reasons to prefer zypper which has been explained countless times on this forum.
1 Like
Thank you all for the advice, but I’m wondering if you can suggest an update notification widget or script that doesn’t use discover.
If you are running Tumbleweed, quite frankly, I don’t see any purpose for an update notifier. Regular Distribution Updates take care of all the needs.
2 Likes
Thanks for your advice. But how often should you update?
Monthly? Or when?
Rolling release distros require regular maintenance aka upgrades. Many new packages and updates also introduce more security issues that needs regular fixing.
If you don‘t want this, a fixed release distro is better suited for you.
I am on Leap and have a maintenance window for all the systems I manage once a week.
I guess for Tumbleweed that would also be OK. But of course, as Tumbleweed user you keep track of the announcements of new snapshots. E.g. in thse very forums in the News and Announcements - openSUSE Forums
2 Likes
@sao Sorry I am this late getting back to you, have been ill lately.
I do the same as Henk, and I do the same with Tumbleweed: Once a week, unless there is a problem, in which case I grab the next zypper dup for TW. It is really your choice, but TW should usually be at least once a week.
1 Like