Starting with M2 LiveCD (KDE); how best to follow up?

I’m installing from the M2 LiveCD (KDE); however, I see that M3 (if not M4) has come to pass; is it better to upgrade, or to simply reinstall? This is not a production partition, so a reinstall is certainly an option; I’m asking because there may be a need to test update scenarios (going from milestone to milestone, for example).

I think this is up to each individual, and what they want to test.

I’ve been installing each milestone, and then testing the packages that I want to see working the most (because I am heavy users of them). In the back of my mind is a concern that:

  • I need to find the bugs early (in packages important to me) so that they have a higher probability getting fixed in time
  • I need to continually check (packages important to me) are not inadvertently broken by some new milestone update
    But everyone needs to make their own approach on this.

I suspect the developers will want one testing the latest release.

I’ve been installing each milestone, and then testing the packages
The best approach as it tests the installation too.

I suspect the developers will want one testing the latest release
Without a doubt this will be the case.

Installing a new milestone cleanly from the DVD version probably gives you the best option, particularly if you need to recover. Bearing in mind comments in the previous posts, for upgrading I believe the “officially” preferred method is to use the new milestone’s live-cd rather than the method discussed below.

Upgrading the whole milestone distribution from Factory-Oss repo, with weekly changes and inbetween (Non-Oss changes infrequently), is a bit hit & miss so timing your update is everything. Even so, eventually it can lead to a mess (it recently did during M3). If you are confident, why not. Having said that, doing a distribution upgrade to a running system using zypper dup is not yet supported “officially”, even though some of us do that. The project is hoping to deliver and support that with the final release of 11.2, if they make it.