openSUSE 11.4

[Rhakios]

Yes folks, it's the release you've all been waiting for. The forums have been abuzz with expectation and now you can get it!

Well, all right, I don't think anyone has mentioned it for quite a while actually. Anyway, here's the announcement.

I am now wondering if I can do an on-line upgrade of 11.3 on testbox to save the bother of downloading the whole thing and installing. I have quite a few custom repos, so it might take a bit of fiddling. Maybe at the weekend.

[Marrea]

Anyway, here's the announcement.

Hmm, looking at the comments although the majority appear to be happy with the new release there are quite a few grumbles. I shall await your views in due course with interest.

[Rhakios]

I'm sure you'll all be delighted to learn that updating the distro on-line actually worked. Following, more or less, procedures I read about on the openSUSE website, I disabled the existing repos, except the one for the nVidia drivers, which I edited to have 11.4, instead of 11.3 (as it accepted the edit and refreshed successfully, I assume this repo is still in the same place). Then I added the three main openSUSE11.4 repos, as advised:

Code: Select all

sudo zypper addrepo --name "openSUSE-11.4 OSS" http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/11.4/repo/oss/repo-11.4-oss
sudo zypper addrepo --name "openSUSE-11.4 Non-OSS" http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/11.4/repo/non-oss/repo-11.4-non-oss
sudo zypper addrepo --name "openSUSE-11.4 Updates" http://download.opensuse.org/update/11.4/ repo-11.4-update


Then did sudo zypper ref to refresh the repos.

Now, there is a problem which might or might not have been solved with updating the version of rpm. I decided to use the workaround and did sudo zypper up rpm before proceeding. This step might well not be necessary any more, but it doesn't do any harm.

Then I logged out and entered a console session, done on the basis that the less stuff that is actually running, the fewer problems there will be. Now I did sudo zypper dup. I accepted the defaults which scrolled up the screen too fast for me to read anyway, then had to accept a number of licenses before things got properly under way.
I decided to leave it alone to get on with things, never a particularly good idea, and when I came back it had stalled on downloading a particular package with the usual a/r/i choice. Retrying got things back on track. I noticed a fair few error messages to do with libreoffice, all of which were accompanied by the assurance that they wouldn't affect things adversely, and finally one last thing I had to accept to do with msttcorefonts, then it was all done.
I rebooted, which went smoothly and now I have a brand new openSUSE11.4 KDE desktop running on test-box. It seems fine, libreoffice opens okay, it managed existing odt files without problems, as well as an old sxc file and the omnipresent doc.
Firefox is at 4 beta12 and presented me with my only real problem, neither the shortcut in the favourites menu, nor the one on the panel would launch it. However the menu icon under Networking would and so I just replaced the other two.
Booting to the log in screen seems at least as fast as 11.3, although logging into KDE takes a little longer.
Overall, it looks like it's a fine release, if not exactly spectacular, and so I'm quite happy to stick with K/Ubuntu 10.04 on my main desktop. I might have a look at tumbleweed, the rolling update repo a little later, perhaps next weekend.

[Rhakios]

Bloomin 'eck, did it really take me twenty odd minutes to write, re-read and edit that? Your post, Marrea, was not in evidence when I started.

Edit: Oh yes, and I forgot one thing, I can't find the kde update tool any where. Something I shall have to look into. Doing the on-line update I didn't get the opportunity to read the release notes that one normally has the time to read when installing from a DVD.

[johnhudson]

The KDE update tool has been replaced by KPackageKit which downloads both security updates and new versions. However, it has a bug in it. So, when I see it appear, I go to online update and download things that way instead.

BTW I did a fresh install using the KDE Live CD and this was the fastest and smoothest install ever. Even after adding all the extra programs I use which aren't part of the standard installation, I was up and running as normal in less two hours.

[Rhakios]

Obviously an on-line upgrade is highly dependant on network bandwidth, if I hadn't left it to get stuck for half an hour or so, I think it would have completed in under an hour. The thing is, at least it worked! It's the first time in quite a while that I've tried to upgrade the entire distro, largely because attempts to do so years ago (8.x?) left a broken system.
One can only hope that it bodes well for the future of the rolling update system.

[RedWillow]

I'm impressed with this new version of opensuse. It's introduced me to a new concept in desktop computing: booting up without an operating system.

I installed it to my lappy and it set up two entries in the grub menu for Windows, "Windows 1" and "Windows 2". "Windows 1" boots into the Vista C: partition on sda2. "Windows 2" boots - or rather errors trying to boot - into my NTFS data partition on sda3.

[Marrea]

I thought I'd have a quick run-through on my old HP ze4505ea before installing on my multi-boot Linux desktop. Apart from running like treacle (understandable given the age of the laptop I suppose), it all looks quite smart.

However, what is it with this KPackageKit thing? I did a fresh DVD installation but KPK keeps telling me that I need to install package openSUSE 11.4-0 and then update to openSUSE 11.4-1.8. It sounds as if it is telling me that there is an update from -0 to -1.8 but first I have to install -0, which is surely what the DVD has already installed?

[johnhudson]

Because of the package freeze for the release candidates, there are always programs in the repositories that have been updated in the last few weeks since the package freeze which need to be upgraded after the installation.

The notation varies between packages.