openSUSE Has A Problem, Is Seeking New Direction

[GreatEmerald]

As an openSUSE user, I'd rather see them drop release schedules, but neither go into full rolling-release mode nor release once a year. Rather, adopt the new AMD driver release model - release when it makes sense. If there are major things to include in the release, then start working on it, and once it's stable enough, release it, without having any deadlines.

I don't think that going rolling-release is a good idea, in part due to what Vax456 said, in part due to the fact that there *already* is Tumbleweed, and in part that releases are a good motivation for users to upgrade. With rolling releases, you get things like kernel upgrades, KDE upgrades etc., but I don't believe too many people install all the upgrades on a regular basis. Some of the programs could stay at an old version for years without anyone caring to update to the latest one. Plus, reinstalling is a great way to clean the installation. There are always packages that you installed to test something or other, and then forgot about their existence, and yet they take up disk space. And what if you want to switch from EXT4 to Btrfs, but don't know when it would be a good time to do so? A new release is a natural point for major upgrades like that.

[uid313]

Rolling releases will be great to end users, but a complete pain in the ass for the developers. When the ABI or API for a shared library like libPNG changes, EVERYTHING that directly depends on it has to get updated as well. If the developers don't catch a broken package due to changes in the shared library, they're going to have tons of angry users breathing down their neck. It's much easier for developers to push back shared library changes to the next release so they have more time for testing.

Well, they could do a semi-rolling release where application software gets updated, but libraries and system components does not.

Out of curiosity, though - if you want gimp-2.8, isn't there a PPA in Ubuntu for that? and even if there wasn't, you do know you could build Gimp yourself, right?

Building yourself sucks; you must download tons of development libraries, read instructions, take long time, install and then you cant uninstall and handle it and it seem difficult and dangerous.
Yeah, I could use PPA. But then I have to use a third-party non-trusted PPA add it myself and stuff. Takes effort, isn't safe and can break stuff.

[DanL]

but I don't believe too many people install all the upgrades on a regular basis.

That's why you make them automatic. As long as user has frequent net connection (and anyone using rolling-release should), then updates get installed.

Rolling means new kernel and xorg versions all the time. Which means you won't necessarily be compatible properietary driver versions, especially GPU drivers, as amd and nvidia don't want to keep up with the kernel.

That's why Debian sid users put relevant X packages on hold when using proprietary blobs. Nvidia does a pretty good job at keeping up with X and kernel (at least with current driver branch), though they could be a bit quicker keeping their legacy branches updated.

[GreatEmerald]

That's why you make them automatic. As long as user has frequent net connection (and anyone using rolling-release should), then updates get installed.

And proceed to break your system. Pretty much every time I upgrade FFmpeg, it breaks something while fixing something else. And pretty much every time I upgrade the kernel, all the binary blobs become broken. So automatic updates are also not ideal... Plus what I said about releases being good points for renewal and change.

[Thaodan]

But OpenSUSE already has a rolling release version - it's called Tumbleweed and works more or less ok, there's only a small catch... Rolling means new kernel and xorg versions all the time. Which means you won't necessarily be compatible properietary driver versions, especially GPU drivers, as amd and nvidia don't want to keep up with the kernel. So, yeah... ;-)

Either way I'm really confident in the dev team, seeing as they manage all this time to keep the whole OpenSUSE distro up to date and stable at the same time.

Tumbleweed is no rolling release its like an extra repo with updated packages.

[Anarchy]

I only recently started tinkering with openSUSE and I did that only after Kubuntu became "an unholy mess". And for now I like it. It's stable and it's relatively up to date. We have to admit that openSUSE is the only distro that cares about KDE. I like KDE and I don't want openSUSE becoming the mess that Kubuntu or Mandriva have become. Just gather your stuff and get back to what you're doing the best.

Maybe there's no real need in being extremely up to date with everything, because the most important thing is stability. This is what we need.

[daver]

But OpenSUSE already has a rolling release version - it's called Tumbleweed.

I disagree. Tumbleweed is an ugly, unholy mess. Have you seriously tried it? I switched openSUSE 12.1 to use the Tumbleweed repository and it was a major PITA to begin with. Then, after sucessfully switching to Tumbleweed there simply weren't enough updates to legitimate the step at all. I don't know , could be that this is perfectly normal to you openSusers. But for everybody else this is just not acceptable when you can haz Debian.

[devius]

Well, they could do a semi-rolling release where application software gets updated, but libraries and system components does not.

It doesn't work that way because sometimes newer versions of applications require newer versions of libraries, so you either update everything or nothing. That's why distros are either rolling release or stable release. Well, theoretically it should be safe to keep an old kernel around, but everything else will spell trouble eventually.

PS: I also thought that the rolling release model was a good idea, and it was for some months (Arch) but then things started breaking and the breakage just kept growing and growing... granted I was using KDE which may explain all the problems.

[kraftman]

Rolling releases will be great to end users, but a complete pain in the ass for the developers. When the ABI or API for a shared library like libPNG changes, EVERYTHING that directly depends on it has to get updated as well. If the developers don't catch a broken package due to changes in the shared library, they're going to have tons of angry users breathing down their neck. It's much easier for developers to push back shared library changes to the next release so they have more time for testing.

Then just update some important applications. Ubuntu already provides upgrades to Firefox.

[Nevertime]

Rolling release with two kernels might be nice and would help single out the distro.. give the option to boot as either the latest kernel and an older kernel that works stably with proprietary drivers.

My experience of Opensuse was quite stable and issue free... if they go that route perhaps its best to not be as cutting edge as most rolling release distros. I'm sure they'd supply a cutting edge repo for people who want to brake things. :P