Portal:16.0/Retrospective

Welcome to the openSUSE Leap 16.0 retrospective.

Survey at https://survey.opensuse.org was opened since 01.10.2025 and closed on 22.10.2025 23:55.

Summary

Scroll down to very bottom or click at #What the survey data really tells us.

What Went Well

General

In general, Leap 16 is stable, The openSUSE Leap usual.
The traditional openSUSE Leap release is still available. (split from more complex answer)
Great distro linux
High quality, very open in the development, strong engagement by release manager Lubos, efficient implementation and amazing to see what great product was created considering that not that many people contribute compared to other distributions.
The stability of the system, the harmony and integration, and that it simply works...an excellent job
Transparency and stability, features work as intended
stable and fast

Installer

Download of on- and offline images, writing to USB stick via Imagewriter (the Qt6 ported/patched version from home:edogawa). Installation via Agama and hand-tailored partition scheme *seemingly* went well. Even though downloading packages took several hours, but I can blame my WiFi for that.

Installation was easy or good. (6 similar responses)

The new Agama installer has a good overall UX and looks nice. (about 6 similar responses)

The new installer feels modern, streamlined and refreshing. (about 4 similar responses)

Installation is faster than before. (about 3 similar responses)

Agama works functionally and installations usually succeed. (about 4 similar responses)

Some parts of the new installer are still missing or need work. (about 2 similar responses)

Agama partitioning works.
Encrypted LVM setup works.
Dual-boot with Windows 11 works.
Remote installation via Cockpit works.
Wi-Fi worked during installation.
Package downloads were slow due to Wi-Fi.
Multiple desktops (KDE, XFCE, GNOME) are selectable in the installer.
VirtualBox installation using Agama worked.
Agama allows jumping freely between sections instead of a strict wizard.
Being able to browse with Firefox during installation is useful.
A graphical terminal for copy-paste during installation is missing.
The Agama installer stalled once during package installation but worked after restart.

Gnome

安装后Gnome界面更简洁；安装更迅速且将原来繁琐的设置精简 - gtranslate: After installation, Gnome's interface is more streamlined; installation is faster and the previously cumbersome settings are simplified.

KDE

OS installation time is very quick. (split from more complex answer)
Desktop environment selection during installation is easy to miss. (split from more complex answer)
KDE should be the default desktop. (split from more complex answer)
Installation in Proxmox VM worked. (split from more complex answer)
Plasma Wayland is usable for daily work.
KDE Plasma runs more fluidly than in 15.6.
KDE background looks nice. (split from more complex answer)
Installation and updates work well in KDE.
Installing apps works well in KDE.
KDE Plasma desktop works fine in general.
KDE performance is good and stable. (split from more complex answer)
KDE Wayland improved significantly after migration. (split from more complex answer)
The new KDE version is appreciated after migration. (split from more complex answer)
X11 is still available in SDDM for KDE. (split from more complex answer)
KDE Plasma 6 interface is clean and stable. (split from more complex answer)

Desktop

X11 is still supported and works well. (split from more complex answer)
Deployment to desktops has been perfect, the UI improvements have been appreciated, and everything has remained seamless to my end users. Adoption into Ubuntu worked with minor hiccups and integration into IDM both FreeIPA, and AD/DC was almost identical (minor sssd changes that were expected and pre documented from microOS deployments).

Repositories / CDN / zypper

Zypper is faster. (split from more complex answer)
Zypper parallel downloads during install are appreciated.

XFCE

An old mac mini (mid-2011) with all its hardware was recognised from the get-go. I chose XFCE in the installation screen, and it worked well.

Maintenance

Being able to skip every other release thanks to 24 months of support is appreciated. (split from more complex answer)
Longer support overlap (25–26 months) would be even better. (split from more complex answer)

The update was very clean.
The installation process went smoothly.
The upgrade from 15.6 to 16.0 was almost flawless. (split from more complex answer)
Software is mostly up to date after upgrade. (split from more complex answer)
Leap 16 provides many updates and up-to-date software.
Setup failed due to Leap repository problems. (split from more complex answer)
Setup failed due to missing Packman repository. (split from more complex answer)
The system was not usable at the time of setup. (split from more complex answer)
Most things went smoothly.
Migration from 15.6 to 16 was easy and fast.
Very fast package updates. (split from more complex answer)
I was able to update after replacing my hard drive. (split from more complex answer)
After resolving repository issues, the upgrade went smoothly. (split from more complex answer)
Installation completed flawlessly.
After restoring the system, the update utility worked.
Zypper upgrades from 15.6 worked reliably.

opensuse-migration-tool

Using the opensuse-migration-tool was a very good experience for 15.6 → 16.0.
The migration tool was easy to use.
The migration tool upgrade ran to completion without errors.
Migration is not possible on CPUs without required instruction sets. (split from more complex answer)
Disabling 3rd-party repositories helped migration. (split from more complex answer)
The migration tool design is good. (split from more complex answer)
Forum guidance helped get the migration tool working. (split from more complex answer)
The migration tool preserved dual-boot setups. (split from more complex answer)

Upgrade

Migration from Leap 15.6 to 16.0 completed.
The system worked well overall after migration. (split from more complex answer)
Migration worked in some cases.
Two out of three migrations worked well. One migration had a minor NVIDIA issue. (split from more complex answer)
Upgrades went fine.
The upgrade itself went well.
The system upgraded successfully.
The system reboots correctly after upgrade. (split from more complex answer)
The system is lighter after upgrade. (split from more complex answer)
Old software was removed. (split from more complex answer)

NVIDIA

nvidia install went well without the need for edit \> nomodeset
AMD ROCm and NVIDIA drivers worked fine. I tested DaVinci Resolve with ROCm and it launched and worked properly after installing the ROCm stack.
Hibernation with NVIDIA drivers works. (split from more complex answer)

Upgrade

Upgrades went fine and was able to install.
The upgrade itself went well.
It upgraded
After upgrade the system reboots correctly one time. X11 is still available in SDDM for KDE. (used for x0vncserver from login to session, sharing the main display basically)
A fresh installation. When make upgrade from old installation, all system fail The system is more light, and manage better the energy and Bluetooth. The interface with KDE Plasma 6 is clean and stable. The system is clean in general terms (very old software is gone) VMWare Workstation Pro work better and his services work.

System management

Cockpit works out of the box. (split from more complex answer)
The Myrlyn software manager looks good. (split from more complex answer)
The KDE version of Myrlyn is okay. (split from more complex answer)
Thank you @shundhammer for working on Myrlyn. It is a welcome continuation of (and even improvement over) the YaST sw_single module. (split from more complex answer)

Software availability

mold is included in the default repositories. (split from more complex answer)
android-tools are included in the default repositories. (split from more complex answer)
sane-airscan is included in the default repositories. (split from more complex answer)
The base system and software versions are more modern. (split from more complex answer)

Community appreciation

The openSUSE community is appreciated.
Support from Forum
https://www.reddit.com/r/openSUSE/comments/1nvdnsb/leap_16_is_a_nice_surprise/

Virtualization

VMware Workstation Pro works better after upgrade. (split from more complex answer)
Fresh install smooth on VMware workstation 17.6.4 All features I use working as expected
I installed in VirtualBox openSUSE Leap 16 as soon as it became available.

3rd party software

Steam installed via flatpak and worked as it should. In general, anything i needed and installed via flatpak worked just fine.

Kernel

The kernel is fairly recent. (split from more complex answer)
Kernel 6.12 improved performance. (split from more complex answer)
NUMA performance improved compared to Leap 15.6. (split from more complex answer)

Hardware Enablement

Power management improved after upgrade. (split from more complex answer)
Bluetooth improved after upgrade. (split from more complex answer) should go into hardware enablement

Communication

Communication
Marketing
Getting release information out in different languages
The release came out on time.
We made a major release, and released it when we said it would be ready.
With all changes considered I think it was good that we managed to release on time

What Didn't Go Too Well

Apparmor

I don't like that the Apparmor gui seems no longer be available even when manually enabling AppArmor

Audio stack

After the installation, I had no sound.
There was no sound. (split from more complex answer)
PipeWire does not work. (split from more complex answer)
WirePlumber does not work. (split from more complex answer)
PulseAudio packages are no longer available in Leap 16. (split from more complex answer)
PulseAudio packages are no longer available in Tumbleweed. (split from more complex answer)
The user compiled and installed PulseAudio manually. (split from more complex answer)
There are no PulseAudio packages in Leap 16. (split from more complex answer)
Installing PulseAudio restored sound. (split from more complex answer)
Installing PulseAudio restored Bluetooth. (split from more complex answer)
Installing PulseAudio stopped KVM freezes. (split from more complex answer)
Installing PulseAudio stopped Firefox freezes. (split from more complex answer)
Installing PulseAudio stopped desktop link freezes. (split from more complex answer)
Installing PulseAudio made Flatpak show the password prompt again. (split from more complex answer)

Gnome

Keyboard in gdm does not have selected the language Leap is installed. Can be set in Gnome as User with localectl set-keymap de-nodeadkeys for German Maybe for a user defined disk parted is a little be tricky to find it in the dropdown menus......
On Gnome, found that CTRL-ALT-CANC reboots (easy to fix, but a little risky)
zypper dup, doesn't always work bc gnome-software runs in background

Installer

Booting the live CD and installing took time.
The installation process hung on several occasions.
The time needed to download the iso and to install was too long.
Manual partitioning needs some polishing.
UI of Agama, it looks nice, but some functionalities are missing, partitioning is confusing, not intuitive, but I believe it can be improved.
Upgrade to Leap 16 failed on a virtual machine because of a problem with partitioning/LVM.
The installer is broken and when you report these issues you get told you are incompetent.
(Offline) installer does not start. Even the fail save option fails to start the installer. Black screen, no progress.
The installer didn't display, I could only start a cockpit session after searching other ways to get passed this blockade Cups version blocks my Brother MFC-J6920DW. Changing cups version in ppd file didn't result in getting the printer operational.
Needed a Network plugged into the laptop to install. Would not install on Dell G5 1550 - Had to do the Fail-safe install. NVIDEA Drivers????? SELINUX is the only option. So it was disabled by me.

KDE

KDE has broken tray icons.
Ctrl+Esc no longer opens the KDE task manager. (split from more complex answer)
KDE Plasma is unusable due to the new graphics stack.

Desktop

Desktop links freeze the desktop when clicked. (split from more complex answer)
Firefox freezes. (split from more complex answer)
My monitor is not properly detected with the new graphics stack.
There were issues with the display resolution.
There was no change in the UI after installation.
The very limited number of open source apps being ported to Wayland.
UI
The UI needs a lot of work.

Maintenance and Git Workflow

Having to use a completely different environment with git on src.opensuse.org makes it really difficult for a maintainer/contributor to work with 16.0\! The heavy lifting is still not done, we have too many open angles between Factory and 16.0. The need to first clone something, selecting the right branch, submitting it, while Factory doesn't even know about this, is just too bad, cumbersome and needs work which should not be necessary\! TBH, I'm not sure I'll spend the same effort I do for updates to Xfce, Firefox, ... on Factory and Leap 15.6\! (Repeated 2 times)
The new git package workflow is a trainwreck. We won't be able to submit for the visible future because of how bad it is. This will leave us submitting to 15.6 instead.

Release process

The overall release process seemed to be too long.

QA

Manual testing wasn't done in a good way.

lkocman's feedback to ^ in fact we had more manual install workshops than in any other release. Installfest + two open houses. The development of 16 took extremely long.

Repositories / CDN / zypper

The repository issues (Packman not being available, cdn mirrors being unreliable) were a major issue. (Repeated 2 times)

Upgrade

The opensuse-migration-tool failed and destroyed my RAID/btrfs data partition.
Upgrade process (using the migration tool) failed several times. The system was unusable after the upgrade and I had to re-install.
The upgrade failed with the migration tool, I had to find a manual fix.
Migration tool (Repeated 2 times)
Upgrade to Leap 16 failed on a virtual machine because of a problem with partitioning/LVM.

System management

I don't want to use Cockpit to manage a desktop system.
YaST was removed. (split from more complex answer)
YaST was a unique selling point of openSUSE. (split from more complex answer)
Cockpit is intended to replace YaST but is not installed by default. (split from more complex answer)
There is no documentation explaining how to install Cockpit. (split from more complex answer)
Root user behavior has changed. (split from more complex answer)
The first user becomes root / admin by default. (split from more complex answer)
Traditional user groups no longer exist. (split from more complex answer)
Each user now gets their own group. (split from more complex answer)
Autologin is no longer easy to configure. (split from more complex answer)
Snapper no longer has a GUI. (split from more complex answer)
The user created their own package to install Cockpit. (split from more complex answer)
Cockpit had to be made accessible via a menu entry manually. (split from more complex answer)

NVIDIA

My NVIDIA card's drivers were missing after the upgrade/install.
nvidia drivers and wayland doesn't work well
Needed a Network plugged into the laptop to install. Would not install on Dell G5 1550 - Had to do the Fail-safe install. NVIDEA Drivers????? SELINUX is the only option. So it was disabled by me.

SELinux

Needed a Network plugged into the laptop to install. Would not install on Dell G5 1550 - Had to do the Fail-safe install. NVIDEA Drivers????? SELINUX is the only option. So it was disabled by me.
SELINUX is a nightmare to deal with.
The user created SELinux exceptions for Wine. (split from more complex answer)
Existing Wine applications from Leap 15.6 worked again after adding SELinux exceptions. (split from more complex answer)
New Wine applications still cannot be created. (split from more complex answer)

Upgrade

My CPU is Xeon V2 with SSE 4.2(Sandy Bridge 32nm) but migration tools neither clean setup allow install Leap 16
The upgrade failed to proceed to the final step. I needed to manually edit the grub config.
It didn't upgrade

Yast

Removal of Yast modules for system configuration, like partitioning, network settings, and printing. The shift to Cockpit is not a complete or easy replacement. (Repeated 3 times)
The lack of YaST during installation, and the resulting feeling of a loss of control.
Cockpit should replace Yast, but it is not installed by default and not a feature-complete replacement.

Virtualization

Some KVM machines no longer work, including SUSE-provided ones. (split from more complex answer)
KVM freezes frequently. (split from more complex answer)

Printing

Still, in the new installed system, I had problems with the printer.

Other

The user considers Leap 16 the worst release ever published by SUSE or openSUSE, performance improvements are negligible compared to the problems. (split from more complex answer)

I lost my hard drive.

Vlastně všechno. Změna fungující distribuce. Spíš mi to připomíná Sabayon, který to taky měl a měl problémy se stabilitou. Nevím co si od toho slibujete, ale pokud se to neopraví tak se to změní v Arch. gtranslate: “Basically everything changed in a way that broke a previously working distribution; it now feels more like Sabayon or Arch with stability problems.”

Repositories / CDN

Packman repositories were unavailable for a long time. (split from more complex answer)
Repositories could not be configured. (split from more complex answer)
After aborting the migration, openSUSE-repos-Leap replaced the user’s own repositories. (split from more complex answer)
User repositories remained disabled after aborting migration. (split from more complex answer)
CDN does not work with all Leap 15.6 repositories. (split from more complex answer)
CDN also fails intermittently on Leap 16. (split from more complex answer)
CDN mirrors are unreliable. (split from more complex answer)

SELinux

SELinux prevents some Wine programs from starting. (split from more complex answer)
SELinux blocks Wine without showing a warning. (split from more complex answer)

Kernel

Btrfs quota was enabled and caused system freezes. (split from more complex answer)
Turning off Btrfs quota stopped sporadic screen freezes. (split from more complex answer)

3rd party software

Flatpak update did not prompt for a root password. (split from more complex answer) see pulseaudio remark
Wine does not work. (split from more complex answer)
Wine programs do not work even with ia32 enabled. (split from more complex answer)

Hardware enablement

Bluetooth did not work. (split from more complex answer)
Daughter card for wireless AC in Dell Latitude E5570 isn't working as well as it used to (slow connection, often dropped).
Wireless card not detected properly.

Documentation

The documentation at https://doc.opensuse.org/ is no longer available. (split from more complex answer)
Release notes are not considered sufficient documentation. (split from more complex answer)

Communication

The plan to end Leap and go immutable-only was miscommunicated but did not happen. (split from more complex answer)
Nobody seems to be accountable or taking responsibility for anything. People are being told to switch to Tumbleweed without any proper process being in place.

What the survey data really tells us

While individual responses cover a wide range of topics, the raw survey data shows that most feedback clusters strongly around a small number of major themes. Leap 16.0 was not perceived as a small incremental change. It was perceived as a structural shift, and users reacted accordingly

The survey collected 222 responses. See File:Leap 16 retrospective raw data.ods if you need more context for particular response.

YaST removal dominates user dissatisfaction

The single most frequently mentioned negative topic in the entire dataset is YaST.

Approximately 45 to 50 responses explicitly mention YaST in a negative context. This represents roughly one quarter of all respondents who provided negative free text feedback. No other topic reached similar levels of repetition.

Feedback goes beyond missing functionality. Many comments frame YaST’s removal as a loss of control, transparency, and identity for openSUSE Leap.

The data strongly suggests that YaST’s disappearance is the emotional center of dissatisfaction around Leap 16.0.

Agama is seen as modern, but also unstable

Agama is mentioned frequently in both positive and negative contexts.

In the raw data, Agama receives approximately 15 to 18 positive mentions, but 30 or more negative mentions. Negative mentions therefore outnumber positive ones by roughly two to one.

Complaints focus on reliability rather than appearance. They include installers not starting, black screens, broken partitioning, VM install failures, and migrations blocked by installer issues.

Agama is therefore one of the largest regression clusters in Leap 16.0 feedback, even though it also receives praise.

Migration worked, but failures were catastrophic

The opensuse migration tool is mentioned in both positive and negative feedback.

Approximately 14 responses report successful migrations, while 8 to 10 responses describe failures. This suggests that the tool works for many users.

However, the failures are severe. Reported issues include RAID or Btrfs data loss, systems left unbootable, and forced reinstalls. These high impact failures disproportionately influence overall perception, even though they affect a minority of users.

Graphics stack is highly polarizing

Graphics related issues form one of the largest technical complaint clusters.

NVIDIA related problems are mentioned in approximately 15 negative responses, compared to only 4 to 6 positive mentions. This makes NVIDIA one of the most negatively skewed hardware topics in the survey.

Wayland related feedback is evenly split, with roughly equal numbers of positive and negative mentions. This indicates polarization rather than broad success.

Many KDE and desktop complaints, such as freezes, broken tray icons, missing resolutions, and unusable sessions, overlap with the graphics stack transition.

Audio stack change caused widespread PulseAudio compatibility issues

Audio related problems appear repeatedly across the dataset.

Many users report no sound, broken Bluetooth, application freezes, and KVM freezes. While PipeWire and WirePlumber are the default audio stack in Leap 16, a clear pattern emerges in the feedback.

Multiple respondents explicitly state that installing PulseAudio restored sound, Bluetooth, Firefox stability, KVM stability, and Flatpak behavior. In several cases, users report that all of their issues disappeared after PulseAudio was installed.

This indicates that the main problem was not that PipeWire itself was unusable, but that the removal of PulseAudio caused compatibility breaks for workflows and applications that still relied on PulseAudio semantics.

Virtualization regressions are significant

Virtualization feedback differs strongly by platform.

VMware is mentioned mostly positively, with few or no negative reports.

In contrast, KVM and VirtualBox are mentioned predominantly in negative contexts, including freezes, broken guests, and non functional SUSE provided images.

This is significant because Leap is commonly used in virtualization and server environments.

What this means for Leap 16.0

The survey does not describe a typical release with evenly distributed feedback. Instead, it shows that a small number of deep architectural changes, particularly YaST removal, Agama, the graphics stack, and the audio stack transition away from PulseAudio, account for a large share of dissatisfaction.

Many users report that Leap 16.0 is fast, modern, and stable once working. However, installation, migration, and initial setup problems significantly reduced trust in the release.

15.6 15.5 15.4 15.3 15.2