Impact of OpenSUSE 12.1 on Tumbleweed

My major motivation for trying Tumbleweed was to have an Arch Linux like distribution but with delta packages. Although delta rpms were only available for the packages in the 11.4 repository and not in the Tumbleweed repository, I continued to be interested in seeing how the 'rolling' model will evolve along with the other distributions of OpenSUSE.

The release of 12.1 distribution had a larger impact on Tumbleweed than I had expected. It was literally a distribution upgrade, no different from 11.4 to 12.1. Tumbleweed repository was emptied and based on 12.1 repository. All packages were upgraded. I had hoped that the Tumbleweed distribution to be very close to the 12.1 and the upgrade should have been minimal even though I had wondered how they will manage versions across repositories.

In the current upgrade, I had to change the repository to point to the current repository instead of 11.4. The current repository is now a symbolic repository so in future no change in the repository information will be needed. However, at least at present, Tumbleweed does not really appear to be a rolling distribution. It is more like the base with some updates, so, not particularly interesting. It is better to use Ubuntu with ppa's.

I will keep watching and may be Tumbleweed will evolve into an interesting alternative. At present, I continue to stick to Fedora and Arch Linux at home and Ubuntu at work.

Tumbleweed and Other Repositories on OpenSUSE

From the OpenSUSE forum posts, it was apparent that I was not the only one confused by which repositories to use and the implication of using multiple repositories.

OpenSUSE does not allow an update from a repository if the package ownership changes. This is a mixed blessing. It appears to be useful if one is using packman repository in addition to the OpenSUSE's OSS, nonOSS and contrib repositories and some packages overlap. However, it also meant that I could not update the additional packages added to Tumbleweed repository. (I may be able to overcome that problem using the instructions in http://en.opensuse.org/SDB:Vendor_change_update.)

I needed to use the following command again.
$ sudo zypper dup --from Tumbleweed

So far, I have not come across delta rpm packages in Tumbleweed repository. I am hoping, once the packages are updated within Tumbleweed, delta rpms will also be available.

I expect that after some time, the 11.4 specific repositories will become redundant.

Currently, it would be easier to stick to Arch Linux! But there would also be less to learn :)

OpenSUSE Tumbleweed

I installed the live KDE version of OpenSUSE 11.4 and then added the Tumbleweed repository as documented here on a Lenovo S10-3 netbook. The installation and updates were pretty straightforward. It updated to 2.6.38 kernel. However, the wi-fi was not connecting. I tried to install the broadcom-wl driver and there wasn't one for 2.6.38. I built the non-free driver for 2.6.38 and installed it. It still did not work. Since I could not understand the cause or diagnose it, I removed the hidden network option on the router. The wireless connection worked!

The next step was to realise that there was an open source broadcom driver brcm80211 included in 2.6.38 kernel and the wl driver wasn't needed. The wifi network worked well with the open source driver. I made the network hidden on the router and the network still worked! I am not sure if this workaround is needed every time a new wifi connection is needed - something to be verified.

My preference is for a rolling distribution which distributes delta packages. I still like Arch Linux and the ease with which I could hold back X11 server to an older version for Intel 845/945 graphics cards. It has been successful in demonstrating the power and feasibility of a rolling distribution model. It is great to see OpenSUSE adapt it and OpenSUSE were, probably, the first to offer delta packages. So, I plan to stick to Tumbleweed on the Lenovo Netbook with the KDE Plasma Netbook interface.

I will continue to keep Arch Linux on my mother's computer which has Intel 945 graphics.

My concern is that since OpenSUSE is continuing to work on discrete distributions as well, they may be complicating their environment. I hope they do not drop Tumbleweed in the process.