Home Wiki > SDB:System upgrade
Sign up | Login

Cancel

Navigation

Help

Toolbox

Sponsors

Sponsor

SDB:System upgrade

tagline: From openSUSE

Documentation > How to migrate to a new openSUSE version
System upgrade - Installation help - How to migrate from Windows
This guide shows how to use Zypper to do a live distribution upgrade of openSUSE.
Tested on openSUSE Recommended articles Related articles
Icon-checked.png

Icon-manual.png Icon-help.png
Version: 11.2+Starting with openSUSE 11.2, a live upgrade from the prior version is officially supported. This allows to perform a complete operating system upgrade in place, without reloading everything from scratch.

Contents

[edit] Summary

This page explains how to run a tool or a series of command line steps to upgrade your system to the latest version of openSUSE.

Doing a live-upgrade has advantages but on the flip-side, there are major disadvantages.

Among the advantages are:

  • You only download the packages that need to be upgraded, thus using a lot less bandwidth.
  • During the upgrade you can still use your workstation (even if this is not recommended); the only downtime will be the reboot after the upgrade.
  • You do not have to use a DVD, nor do you need a DVD writer. (You also could boot from the net or a USB key, and install the rest from the net...)

The disadvantages:

  • If for any reason the upgrade is interrupted (e.g: power outages, network disconnect) and the process can't continue, you could be left with a broken system (that depends on where the process stopped of course).
  • If you have multiple systems to upgrade, you use bandwidth each time, so it might be better to download an ISO image.

Other possibility: Offline upgrade, aka traditional or DVD upgrade. For more information, read offline upgrade.

[edit] Supported scenarios

Be aware that in principle, this upgrade process is considered “best effort” only. This means that due to some third-party packages and the myriad of possible configurations, it is possible for some combinations to cause failure upon upgrade.

It is very important that all important data is backed up prior to beginning the upgrade process.

The following scenarios are the two options available:

  1. Command line – using Zypper.
  2. Graphical tool – using YaST.

[edit] Prepare your installation

The supported starting point is the last openSUSE release with all current updates applied. The following steps show you how to update your openSUSE distribution to the current packages before upgrading to the next version.

[edit] Command line

[edit] 1. Check if the update repository already exists and is enabled.

zypper repos --uri

Check if http://download.opensuse.org/update/11.3/ (replace 11.3 with your version) exists in one of the URI column values, and Yes in column Enabled, like the example below, 

#  | Alias           | Name            | Enabled | Refresh | URI
---+-----------------+-----------------+---------+---------+---------------------------------------
1  | repo-update     | repo-update     | Yes     | Yes     | http://download.opensuse.org/update/11.3/

If column Enabled says No, enable it by issuing this command,

zypper modifyrepo --enable repo-update
where ‘repo-update’ is the name of the update repository.
If it exists and has been enabled, continue to step 3.

[edit] 2. Add update-repository.

zypper addrepo --check --refresh --name 'openSUSE-11.3-Update' http://download.opensuse.org/update/11.3/ repo-update
Replace 11.3 with your version

[edit] 3. Update system to the latest packages.

zypper refresh
zypper update

For more information, read Zypper Usage.

[edit] Graphical tool

See YaST Online Update.

[edit] Running the Upgrade

The following steps will show you how to upgrade your openSUSE distribution to the next released version (eg. 11.3 -> 11.4).

[edit] Command line

Using for example the update from 11.3 -> 11.4 here:

  • Disable all existing pre-openSUSE 11.3 repositories,
zypper modifyrepo --all --disable
  • Add the new openSUSE 11.4 repositories,
zypper addrepo --name "openSUSE-11.4 OSS" http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/11.4/repo/oss/ repo-11.4-oss
zypper addrepo --name "openSUSE-11.4 Non-OSS" http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/11.4/repo/non-oss/ repo-11.4-non-oss
zypper addrepo --refresh --name "openSUSE-11.4 Updates" http://download.opensuse.org/update/11.4/ repo-11.4-update
The last argument sets an alias (a shorthand), you can also choose another alias for the new repositories in the above command.
  • Search for updated openSUSE 11.4 compatible third-party repositories that you used before and add them.
Warning: Use with caution. Using third-party repositories could increase the chances that the upgrade will not complete correctly.
zypper addrepo --name <name> <url> <alias>

Or, if you have URL of a .repo file:

zypper ar <url.repo>
  • Now execute the full distribution upgrade.
zypper ref
zypper dup
With the above command zypper will download the required packages when it installs them. To download all packages in advance, use:
zypper dup --download "in-advance"

If you did the above dist upgrade before the official release date (eg. 15.07.2010 for 11.3), you may have installed a Release Candidate (RC) or milestone version and will need to repeat the final zypper dup step now to receive the final release.

In addition, zypper dup can be run from time to time to ensure you have the latest available packages from the various repositories that you have enabled. YOU (Yast Online Update) only addresses security updates from the official repositories.


[edit] Links to other openSUSE or Novell projects

[edit] Novell's Bugzilla

If you want to use zypper dup to update from a openSUSE 11.4 DVD (not from the online repositories) please be aware of:

  • Bug #677425 `zypper dup` remove liblzma = Bug #677678 upgrading from opensuse 11.3 to 11.4 repo with zypper dup fails: shared libraries: liblzma.so.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

[edit] The openSUSE Forums

Retrieved from "http://en.opensuse.org/SDB:System_upgrade"