openSUSE dist-upgrade

Notes about upgrading openSUSE

Pre-upgrade

I save the following outputs to text files:

rpm -qa --qf "%{NAME}:%{VERSION}\n" | sort
zypper repos -u
zypper dup -l --recommends

From the dup command, I save the part before the 'Continue?' prompt where the list of packages appears, but this info should be found in the zypper logs as well

Checklist

[1] ThinkPad X61s: speed never goes above 1200MHz (max should be 1600MHz)

[2] 50-blacklist.conf renamed as 50-blacklist.conf.rpmsave/not merged

[3] ThinkPad T400: interface doesn't come up, see below

[4] Shutdown didn't work from KDE

Other things to check:

- browser(s) (as an essential piece of software)

- Flash

- systemd daemons (should anything be disabled again, new daemons...)

- number of packages, 'System Packages', new packages - do a little cleanup manually... this is unavoidable

11.4 to 12.1 (2011-11-16)

Upgrade process

Update to 11.4 latest before the dup:

zypper ref
zypper up
reboot # if necessary

Don't: Install systemd if you still have sysvinit installed: http://en.opensuse.org/SDB:Systemd#Install_systemd_on_openSUSE_Factory

zypper in systemd
vi /boot/grub/menu.lst 
# insert 'init=/bin/systemd' ; you can edit the grub menu temporarily instead
reboot
rpm -e --nodeps sysvinit

Dist-upgrade: see also http://en.opensuse.org/Upgrade

zypper lr -u
zypper mr -ad

zypper ar -n 12.1-OSS http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/12.1/repo/oss/ 12.1-OSS

zypper ar -n 12.1-NON http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/12.1/repo/non-oss/ 12.1-NON

zypper ar -n 12.1-UPD http://download.opensuse.org/update/12.1/ 12.1-UPD

zypper ref
zypper dup -l --recommends
reboot

Looks like this was not a good idea (at least it is not a supported method). After the upgrade, I couldn't reboot and had to power the machine off/on manually:

Failed to connect to socket /run/systemd/private: No such file or directory

This problem didn't occur when I didn't replace sysvinit with systemd before the upgrade.

Afterboot

After checking the system, remove the old and add the 3 party repos you want to use. Notice that the Contrib repo is deprecated from 12.1.

I deleted every repo except the new ones. ('zypper rm 5' etc)

To determine which packages belong to deleted repos (or don't belong to repos at all):

zypper se -is | grep "System Packages"

Just for the record, I have the following packages installed from unofficial repos or RPM packages on my work desktop: feh, exiftran, giblib, tint2, scrot, keepassx, MPlayer +a bunch of multimedia libraries.

Post-upgrade problems

On my Lenovo ThinkPad T400, Intel 5100ABGN wireless didn't work because the association with the AP was slow and the IP address wasn't assigned to the card. This was solved by disabling the following line in the ifcfg-wlan0 file (originally I pasted every possible wireless option in the file):

WIRELESS_POWER='yes'

Now the wireless link comes up slowly (~10 sec after kdm), but at least it works.

Note that the same line doesn't mean a problem on my other machine.

Shutdown from KDE didn't power the machine off.

12.1 to 12.2 (2012-09-08)

Upgrade process

zypper repos -u
zypper ref
zypper up
zypper ps
zypper mr -ad
zypper ar -n 12.2-OSS http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/12.2/repo/oss/ 12.2-OSS
zypper ar -n 12.2-NON http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/12.2/repo/non-oss/ 12.2-NON
zypper ar -n 12.2-UPD http://download.opensuse.org/update/12.2/ 12.2-UPD
zypper ar -n KDE-48 http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/KDE:/Release:/48/openSUSE_12.2/ 12.2-KDE-48
zypper ref
zypper dup -l --recommends
systemctl reboot
zypper rr 1 # remove every old repo

Observations and problems

  • 'Recovering edit from draft' - while I edited this page during the upgrade, the Chromium tab died...
  • 442 (!) new packages (from 1274 packages, 69 were removed or renamed; the result is 1647 packages) - Xorg pulled ~180 new packages
  • New feature: GRUB2 was installed and appears as a new line in the GRUB-legacy menu
  • New splash, 'graphical' LUKS dialog, 'hazy planets' artwork/progress indication
  • Bug: Xorg setuid disappeared from /etc/permissions.* (required for 'startx')
  • Bug: console login shows two 'Last login:' lines (I guess it is ConsoleKit related)
  • akonadiserver, zeitgeist had to be uninstalled again
  • remove nepomuk .desktop entries in order to avoid error popup in KDE (known permanent problem for me)
  • KDialog must be 'deactivated' manually again from the Chromium launch script (known permanent problem for me)
  • zypper has a new 'dotted' progress bar now
  • mc first start: "Your old settings were migrated from /home/lgee/.mc to Freedesktop recommended dirs." ~/.cache/mc, ~/.config/mc, ~/.local/share/mc
  • Solved the 'automount requires root password in KDE4' problem: ~.xinitrc: exec ck-launch-session startkde

Dependencies

These packages cannot be removed because the following other packages depend on them (just to remind myself).

xf86-video-* -> xorg-x11-driver-video

gnome-icon-theme -> dia