Portal:Leap/Topics
It secures the future of openSUSE while providing a more stable option for our users. Maintaining a distribution is a lot of work, especially when Stability is a goal. By basing openSUSE on SLE (SUSE Linux Enterprise), the core of Leap will be maintained by SUSE engineers. That means it will get fixes and security updates from SLE.
The openSUSE project can then replace and add the bits and pieces of software that contributors want and are willing to maintain.
openSUSE Leap will also complement Tumbleweed better. When there was one openSUSE, it was torn between those who wanted newer software and those who wanted a stable system. Tumbleweed caters to those who want newer software, which allows the regular release to do an even better job of providing a highly stable system.
How to update Leap?
Leap gets bugs fixed and security updates regularly. To apply official maintenance updates, run the following command as root (ideally inside a screen or tmux session):
zypper patch
zypper patch will only apply packages listed on patchinfo files.
Sometimes third party repositories also offer updates of packages that are not maintenance updates. To install package updates that are not maintenance updates run the following command as root (ideally inside a screen or tmux session):
zypper update
Graphical applications for updating the system are also available, See for example: System Updates
Don't confuse zypper update, which only upgrades already installed packages, with zypper dist-upgrade, which also installs and removes packages, as it tries to perform a distribution upgrade.
When a new Leap version gets released, a distribution upgrade is needed. See: SDB:System upgrade
