Portal:16.0

openSUSE 16.0 Release information

Leap 16.0 is based on the currently developed concept of the next-gen solutions from SUSE called Adaptable Linux Platform (ALP) The roadmap is still TBD. Users can expect the Release of Leap 16.0 in Fall 2023.

High Level requirements for Leap 16.0 Alpha

These requirements are specifically for Leap 16.0 Alpha.
Some of the requirements were gathered as part of the Leap-next Desktop workshop.

Identicality with SUSE ALP

Leap 16 will be built on top of binary packages from the latest commercial offering from SUSE, which at a given point in time will be SUSE ALP.

Immutable OS

Leap 16 will be an Immutable OS with the deployment of updates through transactional-update, which utilizes btrfs snapshots. We'd like to advertise the usage of the distrobox for the installation of additional software without a reboot.

Seamless migration to SUSE ALP

We want to continue where Leap 15 ended and offer users a single click migration from Leap 16 to SUSE ALP Bedrock (the name is subject to a change).

Migration path from the previous releases

Users will be officially able to upgrade to Leap 16 only from the openSUSE Leap 15.5 transactional update server and from Leap Micro 5.X. There are experimental tools that can be used to migrate a non-transactional-update system, but we highly recommend doing a clean installation instead. The migrated system would have to be btrfs based.

Hardware support

Reusing SUSE ALP binaries also defines our minimal basearch level set, which will be x86_64-v2. We'll support v3 via hwcaps. We'd like to support the same architectures as SUSE's ALP.

Lifecycle

Leap 16 Lifecycle has to match SUSE's Lifecycle for General and Overlap support for ALP Bedrock. We will be tailing the development milestones of SUSE ALP. According to the current ALP roadmap, the first release of Leap 16 can be expected in the Fall 2023. Individual system components delivered as containerized workloads may have an independent lifecycle from the base system.
Leap Micro 6.X (Leap 16-based container host) will remain at 6 months release cycle, with support over two releases. The release cadence of traditional Leap 16.0 is yet to be confirmed.

Installation images

Self-install media for Desktop and Container host (Leap Micro 6.X based on Leap 16) Net-install media (Currently D-Installer live media)

Installation profiles

Container Host (Leap Micro 6.X)
Server based on SUSE ALP Bedrock
Experimental GNOME in container Desktop
Traditional GNOME Desktop with Wayland (utilize gnome-initial-setup)

Repository management

Leap 16 will use zypp-services for management of all system repos including OpenH264 and NVIDIA repositories

Mirroring

Leap 16 should have a more mirror friendly structure than Leap 15.

Simplified contribution

Leap 15 enabled contributors to contribute to SUSE Linux Enterprise through mirroring of submit requests to internal build service, this created a bottlenec on a person who manually mirrored submissions. This should be no longer needed as SUSE ALP is developed in public OBS.

Effective openQA collaboration with SUSE ALP

Leap 16 should be more effective at re-using SUSE ALP test suites than Leap 15.