Opensuse is NOT well known for its ability to update previous versions to the next. If you would like to dispute this before adding a comment please perform a search of bugzilla for ‘update’ bugs in version 10.3.
I would like to hear from anyone who actually achieved a no issue update from KDE3 in openSuse 10.3 to KDE4 in openSuse 11.0.
After participating in constructive bug reports for years, I am giving up on the aspect of updating KDE version 10.3 to 11.0 as there are more holes in the process than I can document!
As was the case with version 10.3, I would NOT suggest anyone performing an update. Save your data, or if you /home directory is on another partition even better - just delete the config directories and perform a New Install and re-mount you /home directory without formatting it - If you don’t have a separate partition for you /home directory, save you data to DVD, Not your config data, and perform new Installation, formatting everything. Then copy your data back into your /home directory.
If anyone does have great success in their updating from 10.3 to 11.0 - KDE3 to KDE4 - Please shout me down - I need some faith restored.
IMO the change from 10.3 to 11.0 and the change from KDE3 to KDE4 are two different things. As is told in these forums time and again changing between KDE3 and KDE4 and backwards can be done on every GUI login in either 10.3 or 11.0.
Also these forums tell you time and again that it is better to do a new install of the system than to do an update and that this process is helped very much by having a separate /home partition. And this advice holds true for 10.3 > 11.0.
I think the preferred path is:
- install 11.0 (with KDE3 if you are not already on KDE4 on 10.3) keeping your /home (NOT deleting config files) so that users preferences are still there after the upgrade.
- take some time to settle things down for systems administrator and normal users.
- install the kde4 packages and tell the normal users about it and how to experiment with it and eventualy switch to it.
Deleting KDE3 is not needed. When you switch to a next openSUSE in one or two years time you can discontinue it and not install it again (maybe it will not be there anymore).
The above holds is alo true when you are not only the systems administator, but also the only normal user of the system (the communication between the two will be very easy in that case 
).
You can lessen the pain by upgrading less often. There are not many other options for rapid cycle community-led distros like openSUSE.
IMO lack of a reliable upgrade capability is one of the few remaining issues in the rapidly evolving, bleeding edge distros. Cetainly for the vast majority of self-maintained users who must have the latest and greatest. If you want this type of install, you must also accept the associated hassles.
Corporate releases are different. It seems the trend these days is to simply replace hardware and software, with a “corporate” disk image pre-installed, and centralised configuration management. Six month release cycles and continuous software updates, as is common in community maintained distros, is crazy for a corporate environment.
Community distro folk should at least start to think about this - there is little evidence that they do. SLED and other corporate releases appear to have long-term maintainability in mind, although I have little experience with them (I did use SLED for about 6 months once, until it would not run latest compiz).
If you are a customiser, and during install select “Upgrade” instead of “New Installation”, then get on your knees and start praying. Otherwise, avoid weird hardware, set up your system to install only from the original install repositories, official updates and maybe Packman and you might have a chance (that is, give up serious customisation).
There is both joy and pain in community based linux, joy in customisation, pain from customisation. I also suspect that this is why many users love it.
My $0.02.
zczc2311 wrote:
> Opensuse is NOT well known for its ability to update previous versions
> to the next. -If you would like to dispute this before adding a
> comment please perform a search of bugzilla for ‘update’ bugs in
> version 10.3.-
> I would like to hear from anyone who actually -achieved a no issue
> update- from KDE3 in openSuse 10.3 to KDE4 in openSuse 11.0.
> After participating in constructive bug reports for years, I am giving
> up on the aspect of updating KDE version 10.3 to 11.0 as there are more
> holes in the process than I can document!
> As was the case with version 10.3, I would NOT suggest anyone
> performing an update. Save your data, or if you /home directory is on
> another partition even better - just delete the config directories and
> perform a New Install and re-mount you /home directory without
> formatting it - If you don’t have a separate partition for you /home
> directory, save you data to DVD, Not your config data, and perform new
> Installation, formatting everything. Then copy your data back into your
> /home directory.
> If anyone does have great success in their updating from 10.3 to 11.0
> - KDE3 to KDE4 - Please shout me down - I need some faith restored.
>
>
I had success upgrading 2 live systems (laptop and desktop) using this
tutorial:
http://blogs.warwick.ac.uk/bweber/entry/upgrading_opensuse_103/
Sunny
zczc2311 wrote:
>
> Opensuse is NOT well known for its ability to update previous versions
> to the next. -If you would like to dispute this before adding a
> comment please perform a search of bugzilla for ‘update’ bugs in
> version 10.3.-
> I would like to hear from anyone who actually -achieved a no issue
> update- from KDE3 in openSuse 10.3 to KDE4 in openSuse 11.0.
> After participating in constructive bug reports for years, I am giving
> up on the aspect of updating KDE version 10.3 to 11.0 as there are more
> holes in the process than I can document!
> As was the case with version 10.3, I would NOT suggest anyone
> performing an update. Save your data, or if you /home directory is on
> another partition even better - just delete the config directories and
> perform a New Install and re-mount you /home directory without
> formatting it - If you don’t have a separate partition for you /home
> directory, save you data to DVD, Not your config data, and perform new
> Installation, formatting everything. Then copy your data back into your
> /home directory.
> If anyone does have great success in their updating from 10.3 to 11.0
> - KDE3 to KDE4 - Please shout me down - I need some faith restored.
>
>
my experience is that the opening statement is either an old wife’s tale or
outdated - I always update using the dvd and it just works (and yes I know
not everyone’s been so fortunate).
Suse 11.0 x64, Kde 4.1beta (openSuse factory repo), Opera 9.x weekly
This worked for me, too. I think that openSUSE should implement its own upgrading wizard in the near future, though. Debian-based distros have included this for ages, and Fedora 9 now also supports automatic upgrades via Fedora PreUpgrade. Maybe this could be added in time for 11.2…
Thread locked while moving post to join parent post (that was previously moved to soapbox):
Sucessfull Updates from KDE3 in 10.3 to KDE4 in 110.0 - openSUSE Forums
Move completed. Thread unlocked.
Does anyone know if this method works using the 11.0 install DVD rather than the online repositories?