Portal:Leap

Welcome to the openSUSE Leap portal!

openSUSE Leap uses sources and binaries from SUSE Linux Enterprise (SLE), which gives Leap a level of stability unmatched by other Linux distributions, and combines that with community developments to give users, developers and sysadmins the best stable Linux experience available. Contributor and enterprise efforts for Leap bridge a gap between matured packages and newer packages found in openSUSE’s other distribution Tumbleweed.

The first release of Leap was November 4, 2015, with the release of openSUSE Leap 42.1. The latest release of openSUSE Leap, 15.6, was released on June 12, 2024. Leap will have minor releases and users are expected to upgrade to the latest minor release within 6 months of its availability, leading to a life cycle of 18 months of maintenance and security updates per minor release. The 15 series of Leap is expected to achieve several months of maintenance and security updates.

Topics

Why change?

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

Contribute to Leap

Choosing between Tumbleweed and Leap The Tumbleweed page explains whether you'd want to choose Tumbleweed or the current openSUSE Leap 15.6.

Frequently Asked Questions

Frequently Asked Questions

Q. Will openSUSE Leap work with newer computers?

Yes - openSUSE Leap 15.6, shipped with version 6.4 of the Linux Kernel, which provides very modern hardware support and graphics drivers were backported from newer Linux Kernels.

Q. Will openSUSE Leap work with older computers?

Maybe - openSUSE Leap will be built for 64-bit architectures only, and hence will not run on older hardware without 64-bit support. If you still need 32-bit support, use Tumbleweed.

Please refer to the hardware requirements section.

Q. Why does it have a bit of an old kernel?

6.4 is not that old, but see here for the explanation: Why is the kernel used by Leap so old?

Q. Where can I find more information about the Closing The Leap Gap proposal?

Most of the information can be found in Closing the Leap GAP FAQ

Distributions