Lifetime

openSUSE Leap, the new Regular Release, brings with it a new lifetime.

Each Leap Major Release (42, 15, etc.) is expected to be maintained for at least 36 months, until the next major version of Leap is available.

A Leap Minor Release (42.1, 42.2, etc.) is expected to be released annually. Users are expected to upgrade to the latest minor release within 6 months of its availability, leading to a maintenance life cycle of 18 months.

openSUSE Leap

openSUSE Leap is the new name for openSUSE's regular releases, which were previously known as just 'openSUSE' for versions 13.2 and earlier.

During the lifetime for Leap you will receive:

security updates for all included packages
critical bugfix updates (usually these are found and fixed in the first few months of its lifetime)

The following distributions are expected to receive updates until the specified date:

Leap 15.1 - is expected to be maintained until end of November 2020
Leap 15.2 - is expected to be maintained until end of December 2021

openSUSE Tumbleweed

openSUSE Tumbleweed is a rolling release which has a lifetime of 'forever'¹, assuming you are running the latest updated packages.

It receives security updates, bug fixes and new features (most often as new software versions) as soon as they are integrated and tested by the openSUSE community.

Critical security updates for packages may also be provided in situations where new software versions may not yet address major security issues.

1: Given the declining usage of i586 devices, there have been discussions over whether or not to drop support for Tumbleweed i586. While there is no concrete plan to drop i586 support now, do note this may change in the future.

Discontinued distributions

Users running a (soon-to-be) discontinued version of openSUSE should upgrade their systems to a supported release to receive security updates and community support. Since eventually package repositories for discontinued releases are removed from download servers as well as the build target list of the Build Service, it will be increasingly difficult to install new software on such distributions.

The following distributions have reached their end of life and should not be used:

openSUSE Leap 15.0 - Dec 3rd 2019 - (done)
openSUSE Leap 42.3 - Jul 1st 2019 - (done)
openSUSE Leap 42.2 - Jan 26th 2018 - (done)
openSUSE Leap 42.1 - May 17th 2017 - (done)
openSUSE 13.2 - Jan 17th 2017 - (done)
openSUSE 13.1 - Feb 3rd 2016 - (done) (Note: Evergreen community support for 13.1 had been ended.)
openSUSE 12.3 - Jan 29th 2015 (done)
openSUSE 12.2 - Jan 15th 2014 (done)
openSUSE 12.1 - May 15th 2013 (done)
openSUSE 11.4 - November 5th 2012 (done) (Note: Evergreen community support for 11.4 had been ended.)
openSUSE 11.3 - January 20th 2012 (done)
openSUSE 11.2 - May 12th 2011 (done) (Note: Evergreen community support for 11.2 had been ended.)
openSUSE 11.1 - January 14th 2011 (done) (Note: Evergreen community support for 11.1 had been ended.)
openSUSE 11.0 - July 26th, 2010 (done)
openSUSE 10.3 - October 31st 2009 (done)
openSUSE 10.2 - November 30th 2008 (done)
SUSE Linux 10.1 - May 31st 2008 (done)
SUSE Linux 10.0 - November 30st 2007 (done)
SUSE Linux 9.3 - April 30th 2007 (done)
SUSE Linux 9.2 - October 31st 2006 (done)
SUSE Linux 9.1 - June 30th 2006 (done)

openSUSE versions up to and including 11.1 had a lifetime of two years, and versions up to and including 13.2 had a lifetime of two releases plus an extra two month overlap.

Discontinuation announcements will be sent to these mailing lists:

Images of discontinued images can still be downloaded from this list of mirrors.

Evergreen (long-term maintenance)

The Evergreen project was a community effort for continued maintenance of selected openSUSE releases prior to openSUSE Leap.

All previous Evergreen versions of openSUSE are now out of support.

SUSE Linux Enterprise products

The lifetime of SUSE Enterprise products is listed on the SUSE website. Customers are able to receive support, security and maintenance updates for these products.