I like Tumbleweed and use it on a development machine, but I also have a gaming machine that is running Leap so that I can use the proprietary NVidia drivers and game on it.
I’m constantly trying to update bits of software, and have an OBS with a collection of newer/tweaked apps that I run. My ideal desktop OS would be Tumbleweed apps but with the stable Leap kernel with NVidia drivers.
Given that kernel space and app space should be fairly separate, how inadvisable is it to mix the two? Is it possible to run apps from one and kernel from another? Or will there be GCC compatibility issues or something?
Yep. I might work, but it might also bork your system. I even will, indeed GCC issues ( Leap has 4.8.5, TW has 7.x ). The latest NVIDIA blobs are fully patched for the > 4.10 kernels that TW is at atm. Manual is easy, you can even add dkms. That would at least leave your system’s integrity.
I ran with manual nVidia for a while at one point (possibly before I moved to openSUSE) and it was a bit annoying back then.
Given the problems I’m having with packaged drivers right now, and the fact that manual driver installation requires me to keep an eye on when nVidia release new drivers, then I’ll probably just stick with Leap on my desktop/gaming machine and upgrade to 42.3 when it comes out.
I do this: Block the Kernel Update and install the Nvidia Owners Driver from File.run.
And when I want to unlock the kernel, I update and reboot Nvidia drivers.
You can more or less do what you want not by using any TW repos but with a kernel repo.
You can browse the various kernel repos with a web browser using the following URL as your root… You’ll notice repos for various distros you’ll probably want to avoid but there are a number of repos where you’ll find upstream unmodified, experimental, modified in progress, etc
When you’ve found something you might like to try or use on a regular basis, you can determine the URL to a directory containing a “repo” file and use that to add to your system either through YaST or running the following command
zypper ar -f* repo_uri repo_name*
Because these kernel repos don’t have applications in them, you’ll continue to run LEAP applications but with a non-standard kernel. Be aware that the standard kernel has been modified by openSUSE maintainers to provide an ample amount of functionality which could be missing in special kernels.
@tsu2: Thanks, but that sounds like the opposite of what I want! I want the stable kernel from Leap that has pre-packaged nVidia drivers available, but I want the constantly up-to-date apps from Tumbleweed. What you’ve described sounds like it’d let me have an up-to-date kernel (which would require more work getting nVidia to run consistently) but static and slightly outdated versions of the apps.
@V_idocq: That’d be one way to do it, but it still sounds like more work and hassle than having pre-built packages! I still remember trying distros (possibly RCs) that had a kernel (or Xorg?) so new that it wasn’t supported by the nVidia binary, even if you used the manual method.
I’m sure there must be a market for openSUSE TumbleLeap - update-hungry desktop users who want just enough stability for reliable proprietary drivers
