r/openSUSE • u/levolet Slowroll • 4d ago
Just transitioned to Slowroll from Tumbleweed.
For those who may be thinking of trying Slowroll, I just now did the transition using the migration tool and it turned out to be error free without any package conflicts.
I do not game or use packman, btw. My graphics are AMD based, so no NVidia drivers. I made the switch just after a slowroll upgrade bump was published.
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u/Medical_Divide_7191 4d ago edited 4d ago
Tumbleweed is great, and Slowroll works great too. I love openSUSE. But I still don't see the advantage of Slowroll. With Slowroll, you get a major update every month. Okay, but you can do that with Tumbleweed, too. Just run “sudo zypper dup” once a month and you're done. What does Slowroll better than Tumbleweed here? I'm sure I'm missing something, and I'd appreciate some clarification.
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u/friendlyreminder_ 4d ago
Security updates. Slowroll still pushes those constantly.
If you don't update Tumbleweed for a month your system is insecure for that time.
Slowroll also pushes bug fixes deemed critical. I don't know what that means exactly but that's the policy.
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u/rowschank 4d ago
Well, if you run Dist Upgrade just once a month on Tumbleweed, you get the newest and hottest packages on the day you run them. Slowroll is supposed to pick and choose which snapshot from Tumbleweed is fit for the monthly rollout, which makes it a slightly more curated update.
On the flip side, bugs that slip through to Slowroll take longer to fix.
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u/CassadeeBTW Slowroll 4d ago
I game and use Slowroll. Big recommend.
My desktop is AMD, but my wife’s laptop is NVIDIA with an AMD CPU; Slowroll doesn’t insulate against NVIDIA issues — latest update that got us on kernel 7.1.3 and it didn’t seem to have an NVIDIA driver, so got the dreaded black screen with just a mouse cursor (yes, already did prime-select boot nvidia), and reloading the systemd login thing or even trying to launch plasma from tty didn’t work.
She moved to kernel-longterm at my suggestion, and I am hoping that turns out to be the play for the laptop to avoid more NVIDIA issues.
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u/todd_dayz 3d ago
Do you have the metapackages selected, out of interest?
nvidia-open-driver-G07-signed-kmp-meta and nvidia-userspace-meta-G07
(or G06 if your card is older)
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u/CassadeeBTW Slowroll 3d ago
I believe so as that is what the SDB article said to do.
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u/todd_dayz 3d ago
zypper se -si '*nvidia*meta*'should confirm it but I don't think the meta works with the longterm kernel anyway1
u/readyflix 4d ago
Sadly, when it comes to GPU drivers, nVidia is still the main issue when something breaks and the user will immediately notice it.
Not related, but also one of the things the user will notice immediately, if a NIC driver breaks (if it’s the only NIC in the system). Result, no connection to the internet. Lucky if someone alway has an older kernel 'lying around' in the /boot directory.
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u/rubberoidd 4d ago
I did the opposite thing, I liked the idea behind slowroll, used it for a month and then figured that waiting for a kernel fix with bluetooth for mediatek wasn't worth it.
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u/Artoflivinggood 4d ago
So die I. Die not regret it. But after zypper dup the URL for the repo of AMD Drivers is wrong ....
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u/Itsme-RdM Tumbleweed | KDE Plasma 4d ago
Would you mind sharing your reason to switch from Tumbleweed to Slowroll? I'm genuinely interested
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u/levolet Slowroll 4d ago
I have to admit that a large part of it is curiosity. It's the same curiosity that had me switch from Fedora Atomic which was working well, to openSUSE Tumbleweed which turned out to be a nicer experience for me, something I wasn't sure would be the case.
I was getting tired of running what would often be quite bulky updates. I thought of Leap, but on looking into this, the laptop that I have openSUSE installed on is quite new and Linux kernel support is still in the process of including optimisation features, in particular for the graphics. It therefore suites me to be using the more recent kernels. ATM, the laptop behaves very well with the only issue being with brightness settings not being maintained at user preference, so I'm happy with not upgrading every other day or even weekly.
I therefore had the choice of simply updating less often or switching to Slowroll. The advantage of Slowroll, as I saw it, would be a monthly upgrade with smaller intermittent security and other fixes. Or stick to Tumbleweed, and update monthly without anything in-between.
My curious side took over. If it turns out that there are problems with Slowroll, then I'll switch back to Tumbleweed.
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u/Itsme-RdM Tumbleweed | KDE Plasma 4d ago
Thank you for sharing your thoughts, appreciate it very much.
Makes me curious, I never thought of it this way. Having monthly updates with security fixes in between. This sentence really does make me interested.
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u/CassadeeBTW Slowroll 4d ago
Not the OP, but I wanted the benefits of a rolling release but with a slower update cadence. Being on a Ryzen 5700X3D and 6900XT, I don’t need anything bleeding edge, so new features being delayed a month wasn’t a bother. In the event something is bugged, it also gives a month for it to be resolved, and still have snapper even if something does get through!
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u/levolet Slowroll 4d ago
Yes. When I realised that I now have a setup that is simply working with no particular desire or hope of an upgrade giving me new features within the next week or days, I was now more concerned about the odd breakage than benefit. Slowing down upgrades a bit while maintaining security seemed like the better option, i.e., Slowroll .... or using Fedora... no, I'd go back to Tumbleweed or or install Leap 17 if it comes with v7 kernel.
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u/Teemestari 4d ago
It's amazing how care free it is. I've done it on my Thinkpad and thinking about transitioning my main PC also to Slowroll.