This guide shows how you can upgrade your OpenSUSE 11.3 desktop and server installations to OpenSUSE 11.4.

This document comes without warranty of any kind! I do not issue any guarantee that this will work for you!

 

1 Preliminary Note

The upgrade can be done on the command line or via the YaST module Wagon (if you are on an OpenSUSE desktop). Since the Wagon method is less tested than the command line update, we will use the command line method here for both servers and desktops.

 

2 Installing the Latest Updates

Before we do the distribution upgrade, we install the latest updates for OpenSUSE 11.3. Open a terminal/command line window and run

zypper repos --uri

to check what repositories are used and enabled on the system. Make sure that the line that contains http://download.opensuse.org/update/11.3/ in the URI column reads Yes in the Enabled column (in this example the Alias is repo-update and the Name is openSUSE-11.3-Update, but these values can differ; the important column is the URI column):

linux-17it:~ # zypper repos --uri
# | Alias | Name | Enabled | Refresh | URI
--+--------------+-----------------------+---------+---------+----------------------------------------------------------------
1 | repo-debug | openSUSE-11.3-Debug | No | Yes | http://download.opensuse.org/debug/distribution/11.3/repo/oss/
2 | repo-non-oss | openSUSE-11.3-Non-Oss | Yes | Yes | http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/11.3/repo/non-oss/
3 | repo-oss | openSUSE-11.3-Oss | Yes | Yes | http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/11.3/repo/oss/
4 | repo-source | openSUSE-11.3-Source | No | Yes | http://download.opensuse.org/source/distribution/11.3/repo/oss/
5 | repo-update | openSUSE-11.3-Update | Yes | Yes | http://download.opensuse.org/update/11.3/
linux-17it:~ #

(If the line reads No in the Enabled column, enable the repository as follows:

zypper modifyrepo --enable repo-update

repo-update refers to the Alias column; if the Alias column reads something like http-download.opensuse.org-82ba1b08, for example, the command would be

zypper modifyrepo --enable http-download.opensuse.org-82ba1b08

If there's no repository with the URI http://download.opensuse.org/update/11.3/, then add the repository as follows:

zypper addrepo --check --name 'openSUSE-11.3-Update' http://download.opensuse.org/update/11.3/ repo-update

)

Now install the latest upfates:

zypper refresh

zypper update

 

3 Doing The Distribution Upgrade

Now that the latest updates are installed, disable all OpenSUSE 11.3 repositories...

zypper modifyrepo --all --disable

... and enable the OpenSUSE 11.4 repositories:

zypper addrepo --name "openSUSE-11.4 OSS" http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/11.4/repo/oss/ repo-11.4-oss
zypper addrepo --name "openSUSE-11.4 Non-OSS" http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/11.4/repo/non-oss/ repo-11.4-non-oss
zypper addrepo --name "openSUSE-11.4 Updates" http://download.opensuse.org/update/11.4/ repo-11.4-update

(If the zypper repos --uri command from chapter 2 displayed any third-party repositories, please check if these third-party repositories are available for OpenSUSE 11.4 as well; if they are, add them as follows:

zypper addrepo --name <name> <url> <alias>

For example, if you use the VirtualBox repository...

server1:~ # zypper repos --uri
# | Alias | Name | Enabled | Refresh | URI
--+-----------------+------------------------------+---------+---------+------------------------------------------------------------
...
7 | virtualbox | VirtualBox for openSUSE 11.3 | Yes | Yes | http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/rpm/opensuse/11.3
server1:~ #

... enable the VirtualBox repository for OpenSUSE 11.4 as follows:

zypper addrepo --name "VirtualBox for openSUSE 11.4" http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/rpm/opensuse/11.4 virtualbox-11.4

Use values for Name and Alias that are not in use yet.)

Now run the full distribution upgrade:

zypper ref

zypper dup

At the end, reboot the system...

reboot

... and enjoy your new OpenSUSE 11.4 system.

 

4 Links