Tumbleweed sudo zypper dup had 6500 updates -- 5/3/2026

And now install texlive with --no-recommends parameter. It will only install 139 packages.

ich@rennsemmel:~> LANG=C sudo zypper in --no-recommends texlive
Refreshing service 'NVIDIA'.
Refreshing service 'openSUSE'.
Loading repository data...
Reading installed packages...
Resolving package dependencies...

The following 139 NEW packages are going to be installed:
  java-25-openjdk java-25-openjdk-headless javapackages-filesystem javapackages-tools libgd3 libkpathsea6 liblua5_5-5 libpotrace0 libtexlua53-5 libzzip-0-13 lua-interpreter lua55 system-user-mktex tcsh tcsh-lang texlive texlive-amsfonts
  texlive-amsfonts-fonts texlive-atbegshi texlive-atveryend texlive-auxhook texlive-babel texlive-bigintcalc texlive-bitset texlive-cm texlive-cm-super texlive-cm-super-fonts texlive-ctablestack texlive-dehyph texlive-dehyph-exptl
  texlive-dviasm texlive-dviasm-bin texlive-dvidvi texlive-dvidvi-bin texlive-dvipng texlive-dvipng-bin texlive-dvisvgm texlive-dvisvgm-bin texlive-ec texlive-epstopdf texlive-epstopdf-bin texlive-epstopdf-pkg texlive-etex texlive-etex-pkg
  texlive-etexcmds texlive-etoolbox texlive-euenc texlive-extratools texlive-filesystem texlive-firstaid texlive-fontspec texlive-gettitlestring texlive-graphics texlive-graphics-cfg texlive-graphics-def texlive-greek-fontenc
  texlive-grfext texlive-gsftopk texlive-gsftopk-bin texlive-hopatch texlive-hycolor texlive-hypdoc texlive-hyperref texlive-hyph-utf8 texlive-hyphen-ancientgreek texlive-hyphen-base texlive-hyphen-german texlive-hyphen-greek texlive-iftex
  texlive-infwarerr texlive-intcalc texlive-knuth-lib texlive-kpathsea texlive-kpathsea-bin texlive-kvdefinekeys texlive-kvoptions texlive-kvsetkeys texlive-l3backend texlive-l3kernel texlive-l3packages texlive-lacheck texlive-lacheck-bin
  texlive-latex texlive-latex-bin texlive-latex-bin-bin texlive-latex-fonts texlive-latexconfig texlive-letltxmacro texlive-lm texlive-lm-fonts texlive-ltxcmds texlive-lua-alt-getopt texlive-lua-uni-algos texlive-luahbtex
  texlive-luahbtex-bin texlive-lualibs texlive-luaotfload texlive-luaotfload-bin texlive-luatex texlive-luatex-bin texlive-luatexbase texlive-manfnt texlive-minitoc texlive-notoccite texlive-ntheorem texlive-pdf14 texlive-pdfescape
  texlive-pdftex texlive-pdftex-bin texlive-pdftex-fonts texlive-pdftexcmds texlive-placeins texlive-plain texlive-psfrag texlive-refcount texlive-rerunfilecheck texlive-ruhyphen texlive-scripts texlive-scripts-bin texlive-scripts-extra
  texlive-scripts-extra-bin texlive-seetexk texlive-seetexk-bin texlive-stringenc texlive-tex-ini-files texlive-tex4ht texlive-tex4ht-bin texlive-texlive.infra texlive-tipa texlive-tipa-fonts texlive-tools texlive-ukrhyph
  texlive-unicode-data texlive-uniquecounter texlive-updmap-map texlive-url texlive-xunicode texlive-zapfding texlive-zapfding-fonts

139 new packages to install.

Package download size:   157.4 MiB

Package install size change:
              |     424.8 MiB  required by packages that will be installed
   424.8 MiB  |  -      0 B    released by packages that will be removed

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

Can you believe it? A massive difference of 1826 packages!

  1. The same applies for zypper dup. Don’t simply use zypper dup but zypper dup --no-recommends. You don’t even need to type this parameter everytime you upgrade your machine. Simply adapt zypp.conf, zypper.conf or set the checkbox in Myrlyn.

These are easy but basic recommendations. They don’t need more time but saves you alot of headscratches every year, when you wonder why your system wants to update 6500 packages…