A general question again and I need your thinking and experience. Considering the opensuse 12.1 is coming soon, this question comes into my mind. When do you upgrade to a new version? Or in what condition you decide to upgrade?
As we know, linux system isn’t like windows or mac, which the new version is released more quickly. For example, ubuntu has a new version every half year and opensuse is a little longer. Usually, there are new features with the new version. However, this means I need to reinstall the system every time there is a new version. During the past four years, no matter I use ubuntu or opensuse, the reason I reinstall the system is always because of the upgrading, which means the system actually runs very well but I want to enjoy the new features (it is funny that I reinstall windows always because the system crashes or the system becomes too slow rotfl!). Now I am tired to reinstall the system and all the softwares, so questions:
Do you upgrade to the new version every time? If not, why?
A general question again and I need your thinking and experience. Considering the opensuse 12.1 is coming soon, this question comes into my mind. When do you upgrade to a new version? Or in what condition you decide to upgrade?
As we know, linux system isn’t like windows or mac, which the new version is released more quickly. For example, ubuntu has a new version every half year and opensuse is a little longer. Usually, there are new features with the new version. However, this means I need to reinstall the system every time there is a new version. During the past four years, no matter I use ubuntu or opensuse, the reason I reinstall the system is always because of the upgrading (it is funny because I reinstall windows always because the system crashes or the system becomes too slow rotfl!). Now I am tired to reinstall the system and all the softwares, so questions:
Do you upgrade to the new version every time? If not, why?
In what condition do you decide to upgrade?
Thanks.
So, this is a matter of opinion and my first question to you is how many computers do you run openSUSE on? Have you ever tried using a VM like VirtualBox? Do you feel compelled to load the most recent version of everything? Is your PC used for anything that must work every day or week? Think email or bank accounts or if your openSUSE is used for work.
Based on your answers, you likely can come up with your own answer. I have a couple of PC’s and I can load openSUSE into a VM using VirtualBox. So, I run the latest in in VirtualBox, the moment it comes out for testing. Second, I suggest that in general you wait a month or so for the dust to settle when a new version comes out. If your PC is using 11.4, you got some time before you must upgrade. If your PC is used for work or other none replaceable tasks, I never switch it over at first. I would wait to see what issues shake out and allow any required updates to filter down the system. My main PC will be upgraded within the month of release. I have not yet decided what to do with my HTPC which still uses openSUSE 11.3 as it is working like a champ. Always keep a separate /home area as a clean install can still be used without reformatting your old home area, thus maintaining your personnel settings. You need to only reload your old applications into the new version of openSUSE. Not sure this is your answer or not.
I am a very conservative user who has been using openSUSE (and before then SuSE-Pro) starting at the end of year 2001 (version-7.3). Since then, while I have purchased every SuSE/openSUSE version, I have not always installed the version. There have been occasions where I simply skipped a release (even though I had a purchased commercial CD set (or DVD) ready to install). On many other occasions (and even still today) I will have had different versions of SuSE/openSUSE on different PCs in our apartment. Factors such as my time, and my use of the PC, and availability of important 3rd party applications (and their reported stability) come into play in addition to the desire to benefit from anything new that may (or may not) come with a new release.
Recently (for the past few years) what I do for my main PC is never update to a new release until at least a month has gone by AFTER the ‘gold mastered’ (GM) release date, and sometimes until after 3 or more months have gone by. That allows (1) many of the early bugs to have been fixed, and (2) many more 3rd party applications to have been packaged.
For example:
openSUSE-11.3 was released in July-2010. I installed openSUSE-11.3 on my main PC at the end of December-2010 (ie after 5-months)
openSUSE-11.4 was released in March-2011. I installed openSUSE-11.4 on my main PC at the end of September-2011. (ie after 6-months)
Now I’m not saying it important that one wait 5-6 months to install a release. On the contrary I typically install on test PC(s) the milestones, beta(s), and release candidates of openSUSE. Its fun to play with a new release on a Test PC, or on a Test partition on a main PC (assuming one is VERY confident with grub boot manager tuning). But in general I do not try to be the one who has the newest operating system on the block on my main PC, but rather I believe it important to have some patience and wait a month or two for things to settle down. Rest assured there will be many many thousands of others who WILL dive in to the new release, and the major issues that were missed during the development phase WILL be flushed at during those first couple of months.
That’s just my overly conservative way of approaching this. It has served me well since SuSE-7.3 and before then since Red Hat 4.0.
No, I wait until the version I am using nears EOL. Then I do a clean install of the version that follows it. Because by the time I install it, the bugs have been fixed, I have an idea of what issues I may run into, and how to deal with them.
This time is going to be a biggie, because I want to kill Home, get rid of some of the stuff there that is just taking up space, and no longer needed. Not sure why, since it is a 1TB drive with only 199GiB used.
So after formulating my game plan, backing up essential data (I always forget something), I will be installing openSUSE 11.4 KDE, from the DVD within the next month.
Maybe I’ll follow oldcpu’s plan, and install 12.1 after it has been out 5 or 6 months, instead of waiting so long.
The workstation/server is still having 11.3, I’ll probably skip a release on that one and move it to 12.1 by a fresh install, but not before Feb. 2012, so that all I need will be in the repos.
Re. the laptop I will duplicate the SSD to it’s sister, then upgrade from the GM as soon as it’s there, maybe perform a fresh install as well, just to test and see what’s new in the installer etc. /home and a data partition of cause backed up to the server.