hello pete and steve, On 2/16/06, Peter Connolly wrote:

On Thursday 16 February 2006 13:11, steve.goodey@bt.com wrote:

...

Hello,

Hi Steve

...

Sorry if this is the wrong list. I'm moving from Mandriva to Suse 10.0. I'm a little confused about the difference between Online Update and System Update. Am I right in thinking that System Update would be used if no net connection or if you had updates on a disc? Thanks for any help.

Online update is for delivery of patches and updates from SUSE/Novell on an 'as-needed' basis. System update is for moving from say, version 10.0 to 10.1, larger version upgrades.

HTH

Cheers

Pete

systems update has never worked for me. i have opensuse 10.0 and yast always shows errors in it that i don't seem to be able to clear.

any suggestions? thanks................ed -- Edward Dunagin 4646 Glenwood Drive Bozeman, MT 59718 mobile 406-570-0992

On Thursday 16 February 2006 13:45, Edward Dunagin wrote:

hello pete and steve,

On 2/16/06, Peter Connolly wrote:

...

On Thursday 16 February 2006 13:11, steve.goodey@bt.com wrote:

...

Hello,

Hi Steve

...

Sorry if this is the wrong list. I'm moving from Mandriva to Suse 10.0. I'm a little confused about the difference between Online Update and System Update. Am I right in thinking that System Update would be used if no net connection or if you had updates on a disc? Thanks for any help.

Online update is for delivery of patches and updates from SUSE/Novell on an 'as-needed' basis. System update is for moving from say, version 10.0 to 10.1, larger version upgrades.

HTH

Cheers

Pete

systems update has never worked for me. i have opensuse 10.0 and yast always shows errors in it that i don't seem to be able to clear.

any suggestions? thanks................ed

Hi Edward System update is very intrusive and there will be a need to specify how you want things resolved. It's not for the faint of heart, and although I've done it a few times, I tend to reinstall these days rather than do a system update. Cheers Pete

On Thursday 16 February 2006 19:59, Anders Johansson wrote:

Peter Connolly wrote:

...

Online update is for delivery of patches and updates from SUSE/Novell on an 'as-needed' basis. System update is for moving from say, version 10.0 to 10.1, larger version upgrades.

This is very much not true. If you do use it for this, you will need to do some serious manual fixing, since it won't be able to handle it on its own

OK, maybe I've got it wrong, but what is it for? I've always understood it to be for moving from one point version to another, e.g. 9.2->9.3 etc. It's worked for me, but I do doubt that its 100% effective , I prefer to do a reinstallation these days. Cheers Pete

On Thursday 16 February 2006 22:40, Eberhard Moenkeberg wrote:

Hi, On Thu, 16 Feb 2006, Pete Connolly wrote:

...

OK, maybe I've got it wrong, but what is it for? I've always understood it to be for moving from one point version to another, e.g. 9.2->9.3 etc.

It's worked for me,

It has NOT worked for you this way.

Right. It didn't work for me, despite me sitting here and observing it with my own eyes. I'll take your word for it. The question above still stands. What is System Upgrade for? When you're finished telling me about my own system, maybe you could answer it?

...

but I do doubt that its 100% effective , I prefer to do a reinstallation these days.

Cheers -e

Cheers Pete

On Thursday 16 February 2006 23:00, Eberhard Moenkeberg wrote:

Hi,

On Thu, 16 Feb 2006, Pete Connolly wrote:

...

On Thursday 16 February 2006 22:40, Eberhard Moenkeberg wrote:

...

On Thu, 16 Feb 2006, Pete Connolly wrote:

...

OK, maybe I've got it wrong, but what is it for? I've always understood it to be for moving from one point version to another, e.g. 9.2->9.3 etc.

It's worked for me,

It has NOT worked for you this way.

Right. It didn't work for me, despite me sitting here and observing it with my own eyes. I'll take your word for it.

"e.g. 9.2->9.3 etc." is a pure lie.

False statement, Eberhard. Maybe it didn't work for you? Maybe I spent more time considering the dependencies.

...

The question above still stands. What is System Upgrade for? When you're finished telling me about my own system, maybe you could answer it?

Surely. Your base system needs to be likely uptodate, else you get a message that you need to boot from external, and you have no button to continue.

It works from 10.0 to 10.1-beta3, and if you are lucky it will work from 10.1-betaX to 10.1. But it did not work from 9.2 to 9.3, and neither from 9.3 to 10.0.

Again, it didn't work for you. Don't apply your failure to everyone else. Maybe you'd installed too many external packages? Anyway, this is a non-productive conversation, so I'll take myself out of it. Your failure in the past isn't important to me. Good night. Pete

Eberhard Moenkeberg wrote:

[...] "e.g. 9.2->9.3 etc." is a pure lie.

I don't think you're right. I have a SuSE 9.2 here, and if I specify the FTP directory of 9.3 as installation source, then...

[...] Surely. Your base system needs to be likely uptodate, else you get a message that you need to boot from external, and you have no button to continue.

...nothing stops me from starting a "System Update" and really doing it! It will then most likely end up with the situation described in the SDB. Where did you get your information from that there is no "continue" button? Cheers, Th.

Eberhard Moenkeberg wrote:

[...] Practice. Since 4.4.1. The necessary hand-crafting steps from 5.3 to 6.0 were the difficultiest ever, and I really know only one person who did everything right to trick out Yast with success.

Sorry, no hand-crafting involved here. I could do the "update" without problems (YaST does not stop me) and doing so, I could "destroy" my current installation. We both know what the correct way is to perform an entire system update, but YaST does in this case not stop me from doing the wrong thing... Thus, the only statement I can make: I can't reproduce what you've said. If YaST did indeed stop users from doing an entire system upgrade with the "System Update" module, then the SDB article cited earlier would not make any sense (as according to you that problem should never happen). Hmm...!?? Good night! Th.

Eberhard Moenkeberg wrote:

On Thu, 16 Feb 2006, Thomas Hertweck wrote:

...

[...] Sorry, no hand-crafting involved here. I could do the "update" without problems (YaST does not stop me) and doing so, I could "destroy" my current installation. We both know what the correct way is to perform an entire system update, but YaST does in this case not stop me from doing the wrong thing... Thus, the only statement I can make: I can't reproduce what you've said. If YaST did indeed stop users from doing an entire system upgrade with the "System Update" module, then the SDB article cited earlier would not make any sense (as according to you that problem should never happen). Hmm...!??

...

From where to where? Not from 9.0 to 9.1, and I guess not from 9.3 to 10.0.

It has already been mentioned in my last email: 9.2 -> 9.3 (that system is available to me and that is the system where I made a test). Well, I think there has never been such a functionality in YaST "system update" to protect users from trying a system upgrade to a completely new SUSE version, and that is the reason why we have seen not only one problem report related to this issue on suse-linux (de) over the years (in fact, there were dozens), and that is also a reason why there is an SDB article about this issue - all of that would not have happened if you were fully right. Something is a bit mysterious here... Cheers, Th.

On Thursday 16 February 2006 23:10, Anders Johansson wrote:

Pete Connolly wrote:

...

The question above still stands. What is System Upgrade for? When you're finished telling me about my own system, maybe you could answer it?

Did you read the thread between me and Thomas?

System update is for mass updating of packages, e.g. if you want to get the latest packages from the supplementary directories in one go

Sorry Anders It was a rhetorical question, not mean literally. I'm fairly sure I know what system update is, having peformed the impossible a few times. Cheers Pete

Anders Johansson wrote:

[...]

And in some cases it will fail miserably. Not too many years ago, the YaST script syntax changed, and this caused any attempt to use System Update to upgrade to the next version to fail as soon as the new version of YaST got installed (it only read the new syntax, didn't understand the old, and everything went to pieces)

I don't know details about YaST repositories (or installation sources), but it seems as if the SuSE version is somehow encoded in the path and/or repository/package description. Would it be possible to check the running SuSE version against the new (online?) installation source to see whether the user is trying to do an entire "system upgrade" with the "System Update" module and, if yes, issue at least a warning that this is not the correct way...? Or could something like that be part of the "Installation Sources" module (warning message when user tries to import a repository that does not match the currently running SUSE version)? I don't know whether this is useful at all, it just came to my mind... I am sure that many people do not really understand the purpose of the "System Update" module. Cheers, Th.

Terje J. Hanssen wrote:

Therefore I wonder, how large part of content is really changed? If it would be fairly easy adn possible to pack only the changes (upgrade part) on one single beta upgrade CD, it would have been much more attractive and saved a lot of time at downloading and installation upgrade.

There are delta files. If you have betaN, you can get the patch file, run applydeltaiso on them (applydeltaiso <old iso image> <delta file> <new iso image>) to get beta(N+1) So if you have the beta 2 ISO images, you can go to (for example) http://ftp.leo.org/mirrors/opensuse/distribution/SL-10.1-OSS-beta3/delta-iso... get the delta files, and you'll have beta 3

Anders Johansson wrote:

Terje J. Hanssen wrote:

...

Therefore I wonder, how large part of content is really changed? If it would be fairly easy adn possible to pack only the changes (upgrade part) on one single beta upgrade CD, it would have been much more attractive and saved a lot of time at downloading and installation upgrade.

There are delta files. If you have betaN, you can get the patch file, run applydeltaiso on them (applydeltaiso <old iso image> <delta file> <new iso image>) to get beta(N+1)

So if you have the beta 2 ISO images, you can go to (for example)

http://ftp.leo.org/mirrors/opensuse/distribution/SL-10.1-OSS-beta3/delta-iso...

get the delta files, and you'll have beta 3

Addtitonal: I think I found the right document: http://en.opensuse.org/Download_Help#Applying_Delta_ISOs -------- That sounds much better at last regarding the download, which looks to be total 582 M for all 5 b3 i386 delta-isos. If I understand the things right, one has to merge (upgrade) each b2 iso with the respective b3 delta-iso to make the complete b3 isos, which still has to be burned on 5 CDs? Is an Upgrade installation then ok or is a New installation necessary? Maybe there also exist a document that describes this applydeltaiso procedure in detail? Thanks, Terje J. Hanssen --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-help@opensuse.org

Hi, On Fri, 17 Feb 2006, Anders Johansson wrote:

Pete Connolly wrote:

...

The question above still stands. What is System Upgrade for? When you're finished telling me about my own system, maybe you could answer it?

Did you read the thread between me and Thomas?

System update is for mass updating of packages, e.g. if you want to get the latest packages from the supplementary directories in one go

More abstract, you can adjust your installation source to some "release compatible" other sources, and then actualize everything with minimal interaction. So "update" is a better word then "upgrade". Cheers -e -- Eberhard Moenkeberg (emoenke@gwdg.de, em@kki.org)

Hi, On Fri, 17 Feb 2006, Siegbert Baude wrote:

Eberhard Moenkeberg schrieb:

...

On Fri, 17 Feb 2006, Anders Johansson wrote:

...

...

System update is for mass updating of packages, e.g. if you want to get the latest packages from the supplementary directories in one go

...

More abstract, you can adjust your installation source to some "release compatible" other sources, and then actualize everything with minimal interaction. So "update" is a better word then "upgrade".

If you have third party repositories, yast normally locks them. Can they be updated with "system update" without further action? Would eliminate one good reason to use apt.

Only if the third party repositories come with YasT2 metadata (like packman, usr-local-bin, suser-guru and more and more others), and if you have added them as installation sources. Cheers -e -- Eberhard Moenkeberg (emoenke@gwdg.de, em@kki.org)

Nicola -kOoLiNuS- Losito schrieb:

For this pourposes I am using the Smart PM package made by Pascal, so far it'w working charmly. I've added all the repos & mirrors staten in Pascal's post

To which post are you referring? I would really like to test smart, but until now I don't have any relevant information. Is there one in the wiki, I didn't find yet? Ciao Siegbert

Anders Johansson wrote:

[...] Well, with these definitions, System Update is just that, a System Update. It shouldn't be used to upgrade to a completely new version of the system (e.g. moving from 10.0 to 10.1). It should be used for when you have a source of rpms and you want to mass update them. For example from the supplementary packages on the suse ftp site, or from a packman mirror site.

Sorry Anders, you're wrong! A bunch of RPMs should be installed via "Software Management" - just add the Packman repository as installation source and that's it. YOU (=Update) is for bug and security fixes, and "System Update" is indeed for upgrading from one SuSE Linux version to another SuSE Linux version, and there is no manual fixing necessary if you do a correct(!) upgrade. You can't upgrade the base system while your system is running, therefore you need to boot from CD/DVD to start the "System Update". If you do not care about this, then you end up with what you've just described (a buggy system), and there is even an SDB article about it: http://portal.suse.com/sdb/en/2003/10/thallma_you_oldpatches.html Cheers, Th.

Anders Johansson wrote:

[...]

I'm well aware of this (I work there) but what you're talking about is not System Update. You're talking about a system upgrade from CD or DVD, which is how it should be done. What the OP was asking was what the difference was between online update and system update, which is a fair question considering that the icons are next to each other in YaST and the distinction isn't very well made by YaST

... because the "System Update" is no "update" but an "upgrade" (it installs completely new versions of software packages!). That's what I've said before and asked to change - it should be called "System Upgrade". The names are confusing. I've seen many people trying to use this tool called "System Update" to upgrade to the next version of SuSE Linux - as they tried this while the system was running, it was bound to fail! And that was what I had in mind when writing my last email. In principle, this module should not allow to upgrade to an entire new SuSE Linux version (incl. the base packages). I've never used "System Update" as I could not see any use of it. I've always installed new software via the "Software Management" module and I still can't see the sense of the "System Update" module after reading your mail... CU, Th.

Anders Johansson wrote:

[...] I use system update all the time, to update the packages from the supplementary directories and from Packman. I find it much easier to work with for mass updates (package upgrades) than the software management module, which I mainly use for single package installations and removals. Of course it is possible to use Software Management for it, so in that sense I'd agree with you that System Update is redundant.

Well, if you defined lots of repositories as YaST installation sources, then a "system update" would fetch *all* available new packages (as far as I understand) - this it usually not what I want, I much prefer *selected* and targeted upgrades. For something like that, the software management tool might be better.

File a wishlist bug in bugzilla for it and see what the yast developers think of it. Or join the novellforge YaST project and submit a patch

Well, I won't do that because I think there is no chance to succeed. However, I think the names are really confusing (might have confused myself as well) and some improvement (whatever that is; discuss! Distinguishing between upgrade and update, as proposed, is obviously not the right solution) would be helpful... Cheers, Th.

Anders Johansson wrote:

[...]

After thinking about this a few minutes: how about gathering all the software tools in Software Management. System Update could become something like "File->Select all available updates" and online update could become "File->Fetch security patches" and installation sources could become Settings->Sources. That way there would only be one tool.

Would that be clearer?

Well, the current "system update" and "software management" modules share the same installation sources that can be defined in the corresponding YaST module. According to our discussion, a "system update" should just install all latest software packages available for the currently running SUSE version. If it is like that then I can't see a reason why one needs to have a *separate YaST module* for something like that. It should be (as proposed) an option in one of the menus of the software management module. This could have another advantage: a user would be able to change the selection (instead of just upgrading everything), e.g. he could unselect a single package of 245 new KDE packages because that single package should not be installed ;-) Conclusion from my point of view: I think your proposal could really improve the situation. If possible, one could also issue a warning when somebody tries to import an installation source that does not match the current version of the installed base system. By the way, another feature that could be helpful in the software module (which I couldn't find in any release so far) is an "rpm --verify" command with an option to re-install "damaged" packages based on some criteria (e.g. package has "missing files"). I have had some filesystem problems lately and this RPM command and the re-installation of two packages solved my problems... Cheers, Th.

Hi Anders (& Thomas) On Thursday 16 February 2006 21:48, Anders Johansson wrote:

Thomas Hertweck wrote:

...

... because the "System Update" is no "update" but an "upgrade" (it installs completely new versions of software packages!).

No, it performs a system update by doing package upgrades. That's a difference

OK

...

That's what I've said before and asked to change - it should be called "System Upgrade". The names are confusing. I've seen many people trying to use this tool called "System Update" to upgrade to the next version of SuSE Linux - as they tried this while the system was running, it was bound to fail!

Actually I think more people would be tricked if it was renamed to System Upgrade, don't you? The System Upgrade that gets started when you boot from the CD is the yast installer program. Not yast2-update. They both use the same package management modules, that's true, but the rest is different.

For one thing, yast2-update will not change the product version details in the product database file (which is the main reason for the problem described in the sdb article you linked to).

Which might be the issue. I think we need to distinguish between updating the system with 'point' fixes and doing a wholesale upgrade. Maybe a proper major version upgrade would just tell you to boot from the new CD that you've burnt? Don't bother trying to upgrade a running system. I've done it before, from 9.1->9.2->9.3 but my luck ran out in the end.

...

And that was what I had in mind when writing my last email. In principle, this module should not allow to upgrade to an entire new SuSE Linux version (incl. the base packages). I've never used "System Update" as I could not see any use of it. I've always installed new software via the "Software Management" module and I still can't see the sense of the "System Update" module after reading your mail...

I use system update all the time, to update the packages from the supplementary directories and from Packman. I find it much easier to work with for mass updates (package upgrades) than the software management module, which I mainly use for single package installations and removals. Of course it is possible to use Software Management for it, so in that sense I'd agree with you that System Update is redundant.

File a wishlist bug in bugzilla for it and see what the yast developers think of it. Or join the novellforge YaST project and submit a patch

I'm not sure we need to spend too many cycles on this. To be honest, updating the system this way is asking for trouble, and I'd sooner encourage better practices for keeping home directories on seperate partitions, having good partitioning plans etc. than to have a lazy way of doing a 10.0->10.1 upgrade. Cheers Pete

On Thursday 16 February 2006 22:46, Eberhard Moenkeberg wrote:

Hi,

On Thu, 16 Feb 2006, Pete Connolly wrote:

[Yast2 System Update]

...

I've done it before, from 9.1->9.2->9.3 but my luck ran out in the end.

You have not. Yast2 does detect what you want and does inhibit it. You have to boot from an installation medium to do it.

Fine, twice you call me a liar. Yo've yet to explain what the function of that menu option is.

Cheers -e

Whatever.

Eberhard Moenkeberg wrote:

Hi,

On Thu, 16 Feb 2006, Pete Connolly wrote:

[Yast2 System Update]

...

I've done it before, from 9.1->9.2->9.3 but my luck ran out in the end.

You have not. Yast2 does detect what you want and does inhibit it.

No, unfortunately it doesn't. It will let you do it, and it will try its best to update the packages. But it will not update the package version information in ProdDB, and in some cases, such as when the YaST script syntax changes, it can fail horribly. You can also run into problems if glibc has had an incompatible change (happened I believe in 8.2->9.0, which caused me a lot of problems, I managed to upgrade the system online, but I spent hours doing stuff manually to get it right). And there are other version upgrade tasks which it won't do. But it will upgrade the packages

You have to boot from an installation medium to do it.

Yes, this is the way to do it right

Pascal Bleser wrote:

Why does the "System Update" module in YaST2 reinstall the kernel package every time you run it, then ?

Because of a very annoying bug that I reported in bugzilla a while ago. Apparently it's been fixed in 10.1

Hi Thomas On Thursday 16 February 2006 19:40, Thomas Hertweck wrote:

I have always been a bit confused by this terminology in YaST - it's called "YOU = YaST Online Update", but also "System Update". I have learned a long time ago from a wise and clever teacher that one should distinguish between an update[1] and an upgrade[2]. So maybe it might help to avoid confusion if the item currently called "System Update" could be renamed to "System Upgrade". Just a simple idea, but maybe others didn't have such wise and clever teachers and therefore don't know about the difference... ;-)

I agree you you, the wording is slightly troublesome. We can probably sort it out easily enough. I'd like to think that it could be translatable (sp?) to other languages to indicate that the online update provides 'point' fixes to individual packages, rather than the wholesale approach of a system update. 'System Upgrade' is better than 'System Update'. Carries more weight.

Cheers, Th.

Cheers Pete

[1] update = installing a bug fix, security fix, etc.; for SuSE, it usually means installing a new RPM package with the same version number but a later build number (release). [2] upgrade = installing a completely new version of a software, i.e. the RPM package has a new major/minor version number.

ACK