Maybe I’m missing something and this could be my misunderstanding and or bad config of online updater.
First the updater was always yellow and failed on some repo so nothing got updated for a couple weeks as I couldn’t figure out what was wrong. I finally tried it manually and saw the 11.0 repos were failing so disabled them. Then since Kate stopped working I had to add a bunch of repos to get Bluefish installed.
Now the updater tells there are oodles of updates, but it will not run which actually turned out to be good because it forced me to look closely and try to update with online update in YAST. When I do that if comes up with a voluminous message telling me hundreds, YES HUNDREDS of packages need to be “deinstalled” for dependency issues to be resolved for these updates. Some are libraries some like GIMP I must have.
This scares me to death as I hate kde 4 and the last couple updates have slipped some KDE **** by me that broke stuff I need. I’m afraid if I do this monstrous update it will blow up the machine altogether. This is a lamp box I have hundreds of hours of work into. Some of the updates look important, but they want to practically re or uninstall the OS in order to run.
Here’s some questions:
Can I continue to run kde 3.5 and still get meaningful updates?
Do these humongous number of “deinstalls” mean they will be reinstalled (there’s a disaster waiting to happen) or just eliminated?
I am practically in tears here. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Please post the info requested earlier.
FYI: kde4 in 11.0 sucked big time. Every install I do, I dump the updater applet, it sucks too.
We’ll be able to help once we see the repo details.
Those were some very clear and appreciated instructions. Thanks.
However, what about the couple dozen packages that this will now revert to earlier versions including PHP and mysql? I CANNOT have those become a tangled mess (though they may already be, but they work). I’m not pretending to be qualified to second guess your advice, but I have to ask.
Thanks again.
I told it to update if a newer version is available. There were too many to try to sort it out one at a time. That looks like it worked OK. Thank you very much for your help.
It also looks like I need to learn more about how the updater works. I thought it would just look for what it could use.
Trouble is you had repositories for 11.1 and 11.2 - You should not do that.
In most cases those versions will be running newer versions than you had/have in 11.0
Which is why I told you to do an** Unconditional **update.
You will probably also find a good quantity of what are called Orphaned packages - These will show up with Red text in Software Management and when you look at the version tab there will be nothing supplying it.
Packages may show up red and have a supplying repo, these are rollbacks and only an Unconditional update will roll them back (another method is to do zypper dup in a su terminal)
Because you did update if newer version avail, you may still have some packages that are not only orphaned but also could be versions from 11.1 or 11.2
I guess instinctively you assume that repository management is a superuser thing - but then users are allowed to install things as well aren’t they, just not system wide… So I suppose that explains it.
Lemme ask this then. When I went into the menu and selected unconditional update it came up with a confirmation dialog with continue or cancel, to that effect anyway. I was afraid if I went with continue it would start and I wouldn’t have the chance to unselect stuff like PHP and mysql which I just cannot have break. Was I wrong to assume that? It would have gone to another step and gave me the opportunity to tell it to keep some of the packages. Also what if there IS a new package for things like Apache, PHP or mysql, but it isn’t available except in the newer repos? Am I just stuck using the old versions unless I upgrade the whole OS and KDE to 4? I would love to be able to stick with KDE 3.5 and still be able to get lAMP upgrades.
Thanks again, you’ve been very helpful.
The box would be a pop-up list of changes that will take place. OK to that will not start the process. Once you OK it, you could go back to the system list and adjust your packages.
BUT, what if the packages in question are currently .rpm’s from the 11.2 repo’s you had?? IMO you need to roll it all back and if necessary look later at adding back Build Service repo’s with some assistance.
Is there a difference between packages on the basis of which repo they’re from? Meaning, if you have blah v.1.0 from the repo for 11 and blah v.1.0 from the repo for 11.2, are they different? You’d think I’d know these things by now. I’ve been using Suse since version 7, but only as servers. I set it it up to do what I want and then don’t touch it, maybe for months at a time.
You will find different supported versions. Keep in mind that different releases of openSUSE use different kernels, so something that works in 11.1 may not work in 11.0. Then there are issues of dependencies, which is what you ran into. Upgrading A may require upgrading X, which may break B, which also depends on X. B would have to be removed in order to upgrade.
Just stick to the repos caf gave you for now. If you need to add more in the future, use oldcpu’s guide:
Please STOP even thinking along these lines. We do not use packages from repos which supply different OS’s. (YES, it’s been done, it can be done and it will be done by some) - But as you don’t know the answer to all these questions, is enough for me to know what to recommend to you. DON’T do it.
Once I clone this drive again, I’ll do as you say about rolling back all the newer stuff. Do you have to continually upgrade the Suse distro to get updates. In other words what if I’m happy with 11 or 11.1 and don’t want to move any further than that? Does that mean I can’t ever install the newest versions of PHP, mysql, Apache, APC, PHPMyadmin, etc? At least through YAST?
Thanks again for your time. This has been quite educational in reminding of how much I have left to learn.
But if you are saying like: When you have it up and running all nice, just kind of lock it all down, except perhaps to update Eg; PHP…
You could just stop updating, but if you are online, not a good idea. I’m talking updates/patches - NOT Ditribution Upgrade.
It might be possible to install a newer PHP but it’s likely you will need to meet other dependencies.
