Slowroll package priority

rbos · March 8, 2026, 11:07am

Hi,

slowroll user here.

when I perform a zypper list-updates there are many packages shown that could be updated, but are not because of (I assume) the repository that provides them.

Example:

$ LANG=C zypper in ark alsa

Refreshing service 'openSUSE'.
Loading repository data...
Reading installed packages...
'ark' is already installed.
There is an update candidate for 'ark', but it comes from a repository with a lower priority. Use 'zypper install ark-25.12.1-1.1.x86_64' to install this candidate.
'alsa' is already installed.
There is an update candidate for 'alsa', but it comes from a repository with a lower priority. Use 'zypper install alsa-1.2.15.3-1.1.x86_64' to install this candidate.
Resolving package dependencies...
Nothing to do.

My repository overview:

# LANG=C zypper lr --show-enabled-only

Repository priorities in effect:                                                                                                                                             (See 'zypper lr -P' for details)
      80 (raised priority)  :  1 repository
      99 (default priority) :  3 repositories

# | Alias                    | Name            | Enabled | GPG Check | Refresh
--+--------------------------+-----------------+---------+-----------+--------
2 | openSUSE:repo-non-oss    | repo-non-oss    | Yes     | (r ) Yes  | Yes
3 | openSUSE:repo-openh264   | repo-openh264   | Yes     | (r ) Yes  | Yes
4 | openSUSE:repo-oss        | repo-oss        | Yes     | (r ) Yes  | Yes
7 | openSUSE:update-slowroll | update-slowroll | Yes     | (r ) Yes  | Yes

If I perform a zypper dist-upgrade --allow-vendor-change, not many packages are provided to be updated:

$ LANG=C zyp dist-upgrade --allow-vendor-change

Refreshing service 'openSUSE'.
Loading repository data...
Reading installed packages...
Warning: You are about to do a distribution upgrade with all enabled repositories. Make sure these repositories are compatible before you continue. See 'man zypper' for more information about this command.
Computing distribution upgrade...

The following 4 packages are going to be upgraded:
  PackageKit PackageKit-backend-zypp PackageKit-branding-openSUSE PackageKit-lang

The following 6 packages are going to be downgraded:
  dbus-1 dbus-1-common dbus-1-daemon dbus-1-tools libdbus-1-3 ruby

The following 11 packages are going to be REMOVED:
  libgps31 libopenjph0_25 ruby3.4-rubygem-abstract_method ruby3.4-rubygem-cfa ruby3.4-rubygem-cfa_grub2 ruby3.4-rubygem-cheetah ruby3.4-rubygem-fast_gettext ruby3.4-rubygem-nokogiri
  ruby3.4-rubygem-ruby-augeas ruby3.4-rubygem-ruby-dbus ruby3.4-rubygem-simpleidn

4 packages to upgrade, 6 to downgrade, 11 to remove.

Package download size:     1.2 MiB

Package install size change:
              |       4.1 MiB  required by packages that will be installed
   -10.4 MiB  |  -   14.5 MiB  released by packages that will be removed

Backend:  classic_rpmtrans
Continue? [y/n/v/...? shows all options] (y): n

What to do now?
Should the slowroll package repository priority be increased to 99, so Slowroll is in the same league as the other active repositories?

Or is this going to be resolved automatically in the future (by openSUSE)?

Any other solution?

Thanks in advance.

hui · March 8, 2026, 11:10am

Show your unredacted repo list
zypper lr -d

rbos · March 8, 2026, 2:49pm

Here is the repository overview listing:

# | Alias                    | Name            | Enabled | GPG Check | Refresh | Keep | Priority | Type   | URI                                                      | Service
--+--------------------------+-----------------+---------+-----------+---------+------+----------+--------+----------------------------------------------------------+---------
2 | openSUSE:repo-non-oss    | repo-non-oss    | Ja      | (r ) Ja   | Ja      | -    |   99     | rpm-md | http://download.opensuse.org/slowroll/repo/non-oss       | openSUSE
3 | openSUSE:repo-openh264   | repo-openh264   | Ja      | (r ) Ja   | Ja      | -    |   99     | rpm-md | https://codecs.opensuse.org/openh264/openSUSE_Tumbleweed | openSUSE
4 | openSUSE:repo-oss        | repo-oss        | Ja      | (r ) Ja   | Ja      | -    |   99     | rpm-md | http://download.opensuse.org/slowroll/repo/oss           | openSUSE
7 | openSUSE:update-slowroll | update-slowroll | Ja      | (r ) Ja   | Ja      | -    |   80     | rpm-md | http://download.opensuse.org/update/slowroll/repo/oss    | openSUSE

Slowroll updates have a priority of 80 while the others have 99. This is after migration with the opensuse-migration tool from openSUSE-15.6 to 16.0

hui · March 8, 2026, 2:55pm

Still not the requested output but ok…

Update repo:
ark-25.12.1-1.0.2.2.sr20260101.x86_64.rpm

Base repo:
ark-25.12.2-1.2.x86_64.rpm

hui · March 8, 2026, 3:09pm

The base repos are plain TW repos (see URL). The SR update repo containes updates tailored for SR. As SR is rolling slower than TW, versions in the SR update repo might be lower than in the base TW repo. The versions may pick up with the next monthly big update. This is the concept of SR: rolling slower and have less versions upgrades. Between the monthly big upgrades only security fixes and urgent stuff. And with the monthly upgrades, the package versions get more or less synched to the base TW versions.

If you would remove the SR update repo, you would have a plain TW installation (after vendor switch).

So, a completely intended behaviour. That is also why the update repo has a higher priority: to prefer the packages from the SR update repo.

rbos · March 8, 2026, 4:49pm

Hi Hui and others,

thanks for your support.

See below for the zypper lr -d output. In this I see only 1 url with tumbleweed in it. That’s the one for openh264. All the other urls are slowroll urls. I want a slowroll system and not a tumbleweed system. How to make my system a pure slowroll system?

Installed ark version:

rpm -q --qf "%{NAME} | %{VERSION} | %{RELEASE} | %{DISTRIBUTION}\n" ark

ark | 25.12.1 | 1.0.2.2.sr20260101 | openSUSE Slowroll

Available ark version provided by slowroll:

# LANG=C zypper install --from update-slowroll --details  ark 
Refreshing service 'openSUSE'.
Loading repository data...
Reading installed packages...
'ark' is already installed.
There is an update candidate 'ark-25.12.1-1.1.x86_64' for 'ark-25.12.1-1.0.2.2.sr20260101.x86_64', but it does not match the specified version, architecture, or repository.
There is an update candidate for 'ark', but it comes from a repository with a lower priority. Use 'zypper install ark-25.12.1-1.1.x86_64' to install this candidate.
Resolving package dependencies...
Nothing to do.

If I follow the url that is shown for slowroll I find the newer version of ark listed:

ark-25.12.2-1.2.x86_64.rpm    2/28/2026,   10:50 AM 0.6 MB

And here I don’t understand it, the version in the repo is newer, the repository seems
to be same, at least according to the url (…slowroll/repos/oss).

Oh, ho wait. I just did a discovery. I downloaded the newer package and asked its characteristics:

rpm -qp --qf "%{NAME} | %{VERSION} | %{RELEASE} | %{DISTRIBUTION}\n" ark-25.12.2-1.2.x86_64.rpm 
ark | 25.12.2 | 1.2 | openSUSE Tumbleweed

It is not for slowroll but for tumbleweed.

I verified a couple of more rpms provided by the slowroll update repository http://download.opensuse.org/update/slowroll/repo/oss.
The rpms provided by the slowroll update repository are for tumbleweed and not for slowroll.

      Is it correct that the Slowroll repository provides packages means for Tumbeweed or is it a mistake???

Repolist output:

> zypper lr -d
# | Alias                    | Name                 | Enabled | GPG Check | Refresh | Keep | Priority | Type   | URI                                                                               | Service
--+--------------------------+----------------------+---------+-----------+---------+------+----------+--------+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+---------
1 | network_im_signal        | Signal Messaging D-> | Nee     | ----      | ----    | -    |   99     | rpm-md | https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/network:/im:/signal/openSUSE_Slowroll/ | 
2 | openSUSE:repo-non-oss    | repo-non-oss         | Ja      | (r ) Ja   | Ja      | -    |   99     | rpm-md | http://download.opensuse.org/slowroll/repo/non-oss                                | openSUSE
3 | openSUSE:repo-openh264   | repo-openh264        | Ja      | (r ) Ja   | Ja      | -    |   99     | rpm-md | https://codecs.opensuse.org/openh264/openSUSE_Tumbleweed                          | openSUSE
4 | openSUSE:repo-oss        | repo-oss             | Ja      | (r ) Ja   | Ja      | -    |   99     | rpm-md | http://download.opensuse.org/slowroll/repo/oss                                    | openSUSE
5 | openSUSE:repo-oss-debug  | repo-oss-debug       | Nee     | ----      | ----    | -    |   99     | N/A    | http://download.opensuse.org/debug/slowroll/repo/oss                              | openSUSE
6 | openSUSE:repo-oss-source | repo-oss-source      | Nee     | ----      | ----    | -    |   99     | N/A    | http://download.opensuse.org/source/slowroll/repo/oss                             | openSUSE
7 | openSUSE:update-slowroll | update-slowroll      | Ja      | (r ) Ja   | Ja      | -    |   80     | rpm-md | http://download.opensuse.org/update/slowroll/repo/oss                             | openSUSE

hui · March 8, 2026, 5:20pm

Slowroll release pipeline

Slowroll is based on and uses basically TW packages.
https://en.opensuse.org/Portal:Slowroll

rbos · March 8, 2026, 6:55pm

Thanks for the good reference. I understand the philosophy of Slowroll, and that the packages are taken on stable points from Tumbleweed.

The Slowroll article contains interesting notes:

We do not recommend using development repos and packages on top, 
unless those are specifically compiled for Slowroll. Third party repositories 
which are not tested with Tumbleweed might break your installation.

The packages must be compiled for slowroll and the current ones in the Slowroll repositories are not compiled for Slowroll, but for Tumbleweed (see comments above).

### Keep Slowroll upgraded

Like Tumbleweed, use **zypper dup** to upgrade.

If I perform a zypper dup package ark (or any of the KDE packages) are not updated. Only some Rubly related packages are proposed. Even with “–allow-vendor-change” no more packages are proposed.

/me still puzzled…

The Slowroll update repository priority is set to 80. Which is a higher priority (according the zypper manpage: piority of 1 is the highest, and 2147483647 is the lowest).

The zypper install response is:
There is an update candidate for ‘ark’, but it comes from a repository with a lower priority. Use ‘zypper install ark-25.12.1-1.1.x86_64’ to install this candidate.

And this is confusing. What is the repository with the lower priority? The only repositories that have a lower (or even a different priority are the other repositories) priority “99”. So the repository that provides the package has the highest priority and the a lower priority…

The previous version was installed from the same repository:

date	action	name	version	repository
2026-02-09 20:37:38	install	ark	25.12.1-1.0.2.2.sr20260101	openSUSE:update-slowroll

hcvv · March 8, 2026, 7:43pm

See man zypper:

Priority of 1 is the highest, and 2147483647 is the lowest.

So it is the other way around as you assume.

rbos · March 8, 2026, 7:54pm

@hcvv I concluded the same in my update, above yours.

As my Slowroll repository has the highest priority why is zypper telling me that it comes from a lower priority repository, while it is actually the repository with the highest priority? Why is zypper not updating??
Well see my update above yours.

Sauerland · March 8, 2026, 8:08pm

Why do you set higher priority for the Update Repo?

Update Repo should ever do an Update over the OSS Repo without setting higher priority.

But in this case, I think the slowroll update last week should do the Update over the update Repo?

hui · March 8, 2026, 8:14pm

Because this is the standard setting defined by the Slowroll maintainer. The higher priority of the update repo is defined by the repo service package.

Sauerland · March 8, 2026, 8:17pm

But the Versions/Releases in the OSS Repo is higher as in the Update Repo:
f.e.:
http://download.opensuse.org/slowroll/repo/oss/x86_64/aaa_base-84.87+git20260210.ecce285-1.2.x86_64.rpm

vs
http://download.opensuse.org/update/slowroll/repo/oss/x86_64/aaa_base-84.87+git20260210.ecce285-1.1.x86_64.rpm

Maybe a bug?

rbos · March 8, 2026, 8:20pm

The new package (s) are provided by the base repository as stated by @hui.

I disabled the slowroll-update repository and performed a zypper list-updates after that. Now all packages that can be updated are listed: “The following 196 packages are going to be upgraded”.

I now wonder how to maintain a Slowroll system?

Should the ‘slowroll-update’ repository sometime be disabled, so the package in the main-repository can be installed? (I tried to lowed the slowroll-update priority to 99 as well as 100, but that does not result in zypper providing newer packages.

For now only disabling the ‘slowroll-updates’ works.

What is the correct way of working to maintain Slowroll (package wise)?

I did not/do not update yet. I’ll wait for the advice from the community.

hui · March 8, 2026, 8:23pm

Ping @bmwiedemann

rbos · March 8, 2026, 8:26pm

Because this is the standard setting defined by the Slowroll maintainer. The higher priority of the update repo is defined by the repo service package.

Indeed see ‘zypper’ output:

LANG=C zypper mr --priority 100 update-slowroll

Repository 'openSUSE:update-slowroll' priority has been set to 100. [volatile]
Warning: Repo 'openSUSE:update-slowroll' is managed by service 'openSUSE'. Volatile changes are reset by the next service refresh!

bmwiedemann · March 9, 2026, 11:36am

There are the branding-openSUSE and openSUSE-release package that are Slowroll-specific overlays and those only exist in the update repo and need to take preference over what is the base repo-oss snapshot taken from Tumbleweed.

btw: version bump is underway today.

rbos · March 9, 2026, 8:00pm

@bmwiedemann The update is in/visible now. For me 2801 package in total of which 750 slowroll packages and the rest - 2051 - repo-oss packages (this is with zypper lu).

With zypper dist-upgrade there are 2800 packages to be upgraded and some are to be removed. That seem to the right thing to do.

What is the normal procedure to update Slowroll?
Is there a description available on https://en.opensuse.org/? Think of:

When do the new packages appear (they’ll be shown with zypper lu, but they can’t be updated).
How long (how many days) will the to be updated packages for the next Slowroll release be visible, before the repositories will be updated to the new version - like it was done today.

Thanks.

system · April 8, 2026, 8:00pm

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