Does updating openSUSE Tumbleweed each day cause for a more unstable system? Is it best to update the OS say only 1 time a week for more stability overall?
Thanks
Does updating openSUSE Tumbleweed each day cause for a more unstable system? Is it best to update the OS say only 1 time a week for more stability overall?
Thanks
It shouldn’t, but I don’t think most TW users do that (I could be wrong).
I typically run updates on my TW system about once a week. The system is quite stable.
All TW updates go through automated testing before they are published, and builds that fail or cause tests to fail will prevent packages that fail specific tests (it’s not possible to test everything) will be held up - so TW is not “untested” from release to release. But there is arguably a lack of user testing due to the very nature of it being a rolling release.
Updating does not cause instability. You can update as you want. Many update every day as it only takes some seconds or minutes (can be done while you do other stuff). And others update once a week or month. But keep in mind, that you will have maybe a vulnerable system if you have to big gaps between the updates…
I prefer to have an up to date system with the latest security fixes and update every day for this reason…
For me it all depends on what is in the snapshot… as in reading the announcement in the Forum or Mailing List. My MicroOS setup (not Aeon or Kapla) checks every day, updates and reboots around 1:00am every day…
About three years ago I switched all my systems (and the ones I’m looking after) to openSUSE Tumbleweed. Since then I update my systems nearly every day (the ones I’m looking after only every month or even less).
During all that time none of that systems has become/been unstable (but there have been minor glitches which needed some attention).
However I follow the openSUSE factory mailing list (e.g. read the snapshot announcements and the reviews) and the openSUSE forum.
No.
No.
I configured daily unattended upgrading for other users. They are happy with their Tumbleweed.
I usually upgrade when I read some interesting changes or additions in kernel, like this one 6.7 that includes “bcachefs” at last.
It depends what’s in the updates. Mostly updating straight away doesn’t cause any hassles - beyond the need to sometimes reboot to get everything applied.
I use the nvidia proprietary driver, a major upgrade that includes a kernel version bump may result in a broken driver and no graphical session. That’s a major pain.
When the upstream KDE/Gnome desktop goes through a major change, updating the desktop may bring in some bugs. Mostly the bugs would be minor papercuts, but they can still be annoying.
If I’m busy, I generally don’t update. When I’m in clear air, I will glance at what’s in the release emails, possibly hold back based factors similar to the above. I update fairly frequently (several times a week). I do have another TW system that’s lucky to get updated every month or two, and that seems to work out OK too.
If you’re using btrfs for root, any instability can be reversed by booting back into the older snapshot. I use ext4 for root, so I probably have to take more care than most.
I guess one thing I do take into consideration before an upgrade is if I have time to spend investigating an issue if there’s a problem. That’s not really something I do just as a TW user, though - it’s something that I’ve done all my life for systems I’ve had responsibility for.
I never do an upgrade blindly (and I never enable auto-updates if it can be avoided - because those force you to deal with issues at times that may not be convenient) or as “the last thing I’m going to do today”, because no matter how stable the system is (and TW is quite stable; I just upgraded mine now with no issues, as usual), there is always the potential of something not working, and needing some time to sort it out.
Even when rollback is an option. I feel it’s just better to deal with the issue when it comes up - and if something does happen and I rollback, I want to investigate it now rather than leaving it for later (because my brain will continue to troubleshoot long after I’ve stepped away from the system).
If it helps, this forums website right here runs on a Tumbleweed system which automatically updates itself every night.
And we greatly appreciate the expertise of those who can fix it if the update goes badly - and also that it likely has a set of packages installed that is likely very minimal (almost certainly not a full desktop install, but that’s a guess), which would reduce the risk of a problem.
That’s true.
In August 2016 trouble with Leap made me switch to Tumbleweed. Since then openSUSE showed continuous and coherent progress in improving their upgrade and maintenance procedures.
Infamous host erlangen has the following 25 patterns (some 4000 packages) installed:
erlangen:~ # zypper search --installed-only --type pattern
Loading repository data...
Reading installed packages...
S | Name | Summary | Type
---+---------------+---------------------------------------+--------
i+ | apparmor | AppArmor | pattern
i+ | base | Base System | pattern
i+ | devel_basis | Base Development | pattern
i+ | devel_C_C++ | C/C++ Development | pattern
i+ | devel_java | Java Development | pattern
i+ | devel_perl | Perl Development | pattern
i+ | documentation | Help and Support Documentation | pattern
i+ | enhanced_base | Enhanced Base System | pattern
i+ | file_server | File Server | pattern
i+ | fonts | Fonts | pattern
i+ | games | Games | pattern
i+ | kde | KDE Applications and Plasma 5 Desktop | pattern
i+ | kde_pim | KDE PIM Suite | pattern
i+ | kde_plasma | KDE Plasma 5 Desktop Base | pattern
i+ | lamp_server | Web and LAMP Server | pattern
i+ | minimal_base | Minimal Appliance Base | pattern
i+ | multimedia | Multimedia | pattern
i+ | office | Office Software | pattern
i+ | sw_management | Software Management | pattern
i+ | x11 | X Window System | pattern
i+ | x11_yast | YaST User Interfaces | pattern
i+ | x86_64_v3 | Install x86-64-v3 optimized libraries | pattern
i+ | yast2_basis | YaST Base Utilities | pattern
i+ | yast2_desktop | YaST Desktop Utilities | pattern
i+ | yast2_server | YaST Server Utilities | pattern
erlangen:~ #
It upgrades unattended and virtually hassle free on a daily schedule since 2022.
As a token of my appreciation, I donate a crate of my favourite drink.
I try to update my systems every two days. For most, it will make no difference the time taken to update but one machine is more of a workhorse and if left a week between updates, it can mean downloading and installing over 2000 rpms. One workaround I have made is that every time this machine is started, it runs a dup --download-only which at least charges the cache with all the latest updates but does not interrupt the user by updating a programme in use.
From my experience, anything relative to codecs, kernel and graphic drivers that came from the main Suse repositories are always stable and recommended. It is a good routine to make double checks, sometimes, in:
Yast > Software Management > View > Package classification
Then, as the column presents, you have a classification of your installed components by suggested, recommended, orphaned, unneeded. Just check all of them one by one. The elements in blue means to be updated. The one in red are usually broken path no longer needed or deprecated version no longer supported. It’s good to keep you system clean, up and running. Be only careful with things like Wine. Not always the latest versions may be fine, it depends if you use it and which Windows software compatibility layer you really need. I’m still running more than fine with 8.x I didn’t catch 9.x for now.
Cheers!
Over several years of Tumbleweed use, the biggest problems i’ve had with updates breaking something were because of some change that had been discussed on the factory mailing list - that I didn’t pay attention to.
Problems like the display manager not coming up, cron stops working, etc… And those problems are pretty rare. I’ve never had a truly broken system.