I have 11.3 and as there is no more updates etc. for this version could I go strait to the latest upgrade in one move and as I am a bit concerned the upgrade does not go as it should and is it possible to back up as I would like to keep some stuff and if so how. Also should I go for the upgrade or use a disc (12.1) I bought some time ago.
It is not recommended to use the Upgrade facility of the DVD to make such a step leaving out 11.4. (Though some may have managed to do this with success).
Best would be IMHO to do a fresh 12.1 install while keeping your /home partition (I hope you have a separate partition for it) untouched.
Of course a good backup of all you have now is a prerequisite.
On 2012-03-25 13:36, ex-para wrote:
>
> I have 11.3 and as there is no more updates etc. for this version could
> I go strait to the latest upgrade in one move and as I am a bit
> concerned the upgrade does not go as it should and is it possible to
> back up as I would like to keep some stuff and if so how. Also should I
> go for the upgrade or use a disc (12.1) I bought some time ago.
Online upgrade method
Offline upgrade method
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4 x86_64 “Celadon” at Telcontar)
Thanks for the reply, took me some time to find out what IMHO means. I have dual boot with Vista so as far as I know and looking at Gpart Opensuse is in separate partition but I don’t think you mean that partition or do you mean do a fresh install leaving 11.3 where it is, but you say its not a good idea to use a disc so that must not be correct. Maybe you would be good enough to give me a bit more detail.
OpenSUSE by default creates and installs in 3 partitions. 1) swap 2)root 3) home. But you can force it into two partitions. 1)swap 2)root.
The advantage of 3 partition is that the home partition contains all your personal stuff and makes it much easier to install a new Linux OS without effecting your personal data.
If you only have 2 swap and root then the /home directory is on the same partition as the root and will get erased if you install a new Linux OS.
If you are confused please show us the output of fdisk -l (note that is lower case L not a one) Please use code tags. the easiest way is to press Go advanced in and selecting the text and pressing the code tag button.
I am not sure on the tag thing.
bero@linux-l264:~> su
Password:
su: incorrect password
bero@linux-l264:~> fdisk -l
Absolute path to ‘fdisk’ is ‘/sbin/fdisk’, so running it may require superuser privileges (eg. root).
bero@linux-l264:~> su
Password:
linux-l264:/home/bero # fdisk -l
Disk /dev/sda: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x5529a67d
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 10728 86164627 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2 * 10728 19458 70123520 f W95 Ext’d (LBA)
/dev/sda5 10728 10918 1530880 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda6 10919 13530 20972544 83 Linux
/dev/sda7 13530 19457 47607808 83 Linux
linux-l264:/home/bero #
First a few things:
- You should use
su -
, mind the - sign.
- You made mistake in giving the root password, why did you not redo that? You are lucky that fdisk, when dong a read-only option, can work as normal user (bygiving the full path).
- Please post computer text output like this between CODE tags, that will preserve the layout and has much more positive effects: http://forums.opensuse.org/english/information-new-users/advanced-how-faq-read-only/451526-posting-code-tags-guide.html
I do not knnow if you studied the output and understand what it means. But you have
- sda1: the partition where your Windows is on;
- sda2 is the extended partition that is a container for all theat follows below;
- sda5 is your Swap partition (± 1.5 GB);
- sda6 is most probably your root (or*/*
, or system) partition (± 20GB); - sda7 is another Linux partition, most probably your* /home *
is there.
That is all very normal, but it contradicts you saying about one seperate partition for openSUSE.
When we say, install new without touching /home, that means that when the installer comes to the partitioning part, you sahould thouroughly check if it:
- does not do any formatting on sda1 and sda7;
- has /home as a mountpoint for sda7;
- reformats sda6 with ext4 and mount it on /;
- reuses sda5 as Swap.
When it offers different, change it. Do ask here when in doubt.
By putting code tags around the output the text will remain in the original format making it easier to read. 2 ways to do it
- place tag] /tag] at beginning and end of text where tag is code.
note If i had put “code” in the square brackets above it would have executed that and made a “code” window - select Go Advanced and highlight the text and select code tag from selection at the top of the advanced edit window
Although the recommendations to this point are excellent,
And considering IMO the only really good insurance is a known working backup,
I’d recommend that you first devote your efforts to doing a backup and test restore.
Once that is done, then I think that practically any procedure you choose no matter how risky can be considered (of course the more perceived risk there should be corresponding reward).
I’m one of those who fortunately was able to execute the upgrade jump directly from 11.3 > 12.1, and I fully documented the issues I encountered here
I fully agree that such a jump skipping 11.4 should not be the official recommendation, but I do point out that it’s possible particularly if you’re not running custom services and other odd configurations.
One thing I didn’t include in that post is that for the cautious, there is a zypper dup option that only does a trial run without actually doing the upgrade… That could possibly give you a list of issues before doing an actual upgrade.
Otherwise, I think you should be able to do the upgrades 11.3 > 11.4 > 12.1 which is the officially supported recommendation, and I’m not aware that there is any issue whether you choose the DVD or zypper dup route.
Note that I believe you should have at least 15gb or so of free space for just one upgrade, if you install new OS into existing partitions without removing files I would guess you should allow similar space for each OS (today. probably future OS will require more).
TS
On 2012-03-26 00:06, tsu2 wrote:
> I’m one of those who fortunately was able to execute the upgrade jump
> directly from 11.3 > 12.1, and I fully documented the issues I
> encountered here
I have done bigger jumps than that 
I pointed to two links giving the two known upgrade procedures several
posts ago. The offline method supports a jump of two versions, but as any
such operation, it can fail and a backup is recommended.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4 x86_64 “Celadon” at Telcontar)