On 2/19/21 2:57 AM, Robert Hardy wrote:
I finally got around to the 15.1>15.2 upgrade the other day using the iso image on dvd, and here's a few notes. I'd like to hear what people think.
I initially tried to update all repositories before the upgrade, but I must have messed up the pacman url, because it was not found and I had conflicts. I tried to use the back button to fix it, but couldn't find my back to the right spot, and decided to be conservative and start again with just the dvd. I ended up with conflicts anyway and resolved them one by one.
The result was about 400 packages deleted. A lot of them were development packages and debuginfo and whatnot. I haven't looked further yet.
After the upgrade I used Yast to switch to pacman, and it did pull some packages back in. I also used Yast for a serious online update. BTW, I noticed the main repository does not carry some chess packages such as xboard; they are only available from pacman.
I then noticed about 600 packages still had an "x-lp151.x" sort of moniker-- zypper up took care of that.
KDE's notification system isn't working due to a problem with xfce as described here: https://forums.opensuse.org/showthread.php/543232-Lost-notifications . I'm not entirely happy with the proposed solutions. I seem to recall KDE notification problems before, perhaps with 15.0, or maybe 42.0, where my system would fall back to xfce notifications until the KDE problems were fixed. That seemed like a nice behavior, all in all.
ksysguard has gone from maybe 6-8% of one CPU to 30-40%. I've always tended to leave that running on one desktop, but 30-40% is unacceptable. It also apparently replaced my file read/write columns with Download/Upload.
I have a CPU temp monitor in one of the panels that is not working. Any attempt to open its configuration dialog crashes plasmashell.
Then there's akonadi. Akonadi_imap_resource, akonadiserver, and mysqld hog CPU continually on admittedly very large gmail folders until such time as akonadiserver "closes unexpectedly". I've also suddenly got 1131-300-200-100-300 emails in a drafts folder as reported variously by kontact and xfce. None of them are visible. Akonadi server somehow restarts itself. Hey, I can't watch Netflix while akonadi is running! At times past, I've bumped akonadi's priority down a notch.
I haven't mentioned bluetooth which has been an ongoing problem for a long time. I've successfully nursed it in the past with restarts and whatnot, but I don't want to get into that at the moment. I used to use serial over bluetooth a lot, as well as tethering to my phone, but for the moment, it's a bit beyond me.
So, comments? I can follow up on my downtime, keeping in mind that it will take time away from watching Netflix! ;-)
I've read the other replies, some good advice there. Fwiw (or not), since you asked . . . I've been using the DVD upgrade method for ~20 years. I (still) find it the easiest, and agree with the openSUSE documentation that states this is the most "robust" method. While most on this list are probably fans of using zypper and that is just fine (I'd also guess most are also intermediate-to-advanced users), IME the DVD is easier/better for resolving hiccups before the user commits to the upgrade. But with either route the user has to understand his/her system and the process very well, if surprises are to be avoided or mitigated. Consequently one practice I borrowed from my enterprise days has been to /always/ perform a proforma upgrade. I keep storage on each machine to which I can copy my production system, test the upgrade process and then exercise the post-upgrade system with a representative suite of tests. The most difficult problems I recall have invariably been with graphics or new hardware. Or with KDE - which I blame on myself for stubbornly continue to use it. :) IMO it's also very important to clean up one's repositories and current software setup beforehand. Having many hundreds of files to delete or a load more not making any sense, would move me to look closely first to understand what this means. I'm only using ~150 Packman files, mostly multimedia apps with half the files being the libraries. Maybe you use a lot more from Packman than I do, but I would l want to understand the "whatnot" that you had "not looked further at" before. I do include Packman in my upgrade by switching the repo beforehand and then during the upgrade toggling YaST to include it. Going to 15.2 I got maybe 50 conflicts but nearly all were about version differences for which I just needed to decide which to use; all but a few were recognizable and dispositioned quickly. There are always a few where the dependencies need to be realigned. The ability to load the YaST Software module and work thru these with all its power, ensures that at least the software stack is clean before committing to proceed. Each cycle I regularly accumulate about a dozen additional OBS repositories for this or that app or to get a newer version, but all of those I remove and let the upgrade revert the files to the new main repo versions (which typically are as new/newer than the version I had added before). IMO trying to include all these in the upgrade would mean I must have a pain fetish. No comment on your xfce vs kde issue, except to say I probably wouldn't mix the two and if I did, frankly I would not consider that an openSUSE glitch unless it is a supported function/feature. Re ksysguard. First, the config file for the main window that is set up by default may make some small format change; that happens all the time with lots of KDE stuff. Your read & write columns are still there; just a couple of clicks to return/rearrange columns. With the performance hit, I have seen this after a KDE upgrade a few times and it appears that some functions do a lot of activity being reinitialized, and then KDE settles down. This happened this time around too and now a couple days later everything has calmed down. If your cpu load doesn't, obviously something not right. Trying a couple different desktop managers may help isolate the problem. Also check your power management, maybe a KDE change is causing throttling. Akonadi has long been recognized as a PITA and AFAICT it is an architecture issue that hasn't been/won't be fixed for a long time. While some misbehavior can be mitigated a bit, I still ended up dropping it altogether with 42.3. Just one last /personal/ opinion since some suggest that other distros are better at upgrades. I suppose that's entirely possible, maybe even probable. What I do know is that of the ~two dozen distros I've used, I can't offhand recall any with better system mgmt tools. It's not a coincidence that the best are backed by commercial enterprise vendors. And I never saw a shop which did not do a full system test before attempting to upgrade a production system. --dg