openSUSE Leap is a free and Linux-based operating system for your PC, Laptop or Server. You can surf the web, manage your e-mails and photos, do office work, play videos or music and have a lot of fun!
This is the initial version of the release notes for the forthcoming openSUSE 42.2.
If you upgrade from an older version to this openSUSE Leap release, see previous release notes listed here: http://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Release_Notes.
This public beta test is part of the openSUSE project. Information about the project is available at https://www.opensuse.org.
Report all bugs you encounter using this prerelease of openSUSE 42.2 in the openSUSE Bugzilla. For more information, see http://en.opensuse.org/Submitting_Bug_Reports. If you would like to see anything added to the release notes, file a bug report against the component “Release Notes”.
This section contains installation-related notes. For detailed upgrade instructions, see the documentation at https://doc.opensuse.org/documentation/leap/startup/html/book.opensuse.startup/part.basics.html.
To avoid some big recommended packages from being installed, the pattern for minimal installations uses another pattern that creates conflicts with undesired packages. This pattern, patterns-openSUSE-minimal_base-conflicts, can be removed after installation.
Note that the minimal installation has no firewall by default. If you need one, install SuSEfirewall2.
Prior to installing openSUSE on a system that boots using UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface), you are urgently advised to check for any firmware updates the hardware vendor recommends and, if available, to install such an update. A pre-installed Windows 8 is a strong indication that your system boots using UEFI.
Background: Some UEFI firmware has bugs that cause it to break if too much data gets written to the UEFI storage area. However, there is no clear data of how much is “too much”.
openSUSE minimizes the risk by not writing more than the bare minimum required to boot the OS. The minimum means telling the UEFI firmware about the location of the openSUSE boot loader. Upstream Linux kernel features that use the UEFI storage area for storing boot and crash information (pstore) have been disabled by default. Nevertheless, it is recommended to install any firmware updates the hardware vendor recommends.
When setting the default mount value to during partitioning, the installer will report an error and crash. As a workaround use another option for installation. If needed, switch back to on the running system.
Together with the EFI/UEFI specification, a new style of partitioning arrived: GPT (GUID Partition Table). This new schema uses globally unique identifiers (128-bit values displayed in 32 hexadecimal digits) to identify devices and partition types.
Additionally, the UEFI specification also allows legacy MBR (MS-DOS) partitions. The Linux boot loaders (ELILO or GRUB 2) try to automatically generate a GUID for those legacy partitions, and write them to the firmware. Such a GUID can change frequently, causing a rewrite in the firmware. A rewrite consists of two different operations: Removing the old entry and creating a new entry that replaces the first one.
Modern firmware has a garbage collector that collects deleted entries and frees the memory reserved for old entries. A problem arises when faulty firmware does not collect and free those entries. This can result in a non-bootable system.
To work around this problem, convert the legacy MBR partition to GPT.
With openSUSE Leap 42.2, the Nouveau Mesa/DRI driver for 2D/3D rendering is considered experimental. The Nouveau kernel/KMS driver and the Nouveau X.org/DDX driver for 2D rendering are still considered stable.
When the Nouveau Mesa/DRI driver is in use, some applications may crash, especially KDE and Qt applications. The driver is now in a separate package called Mesa-dri-nouveau, which can be removed in case of problems.
Without this driver installed, there is no hardware 3D acceleration support on any Nvidia GPU and no 2D acceleration on newer Nvidia GPUs that use Glamor for fast 2D operations. Kernel Mode Setting and basic 2D are still available, as is 2D acceleration via EXA on GPUs from the Nvidia GPU generation code-named Kepler (introduced in 2012) and earlier. 3D operations are supported via software rendering.
For more information, see the bug reports at https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=91632 and https://bugzilla.opensuse.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1005323.
This section lists notes related to upgrading the system. For detailed upgrade instructions, see the documentation at https://doc.opensuse.org/documentation/leap/startup/html/book.opensuse.startup/cha.update.osuse.html.
The following packages have been removed or replaced compared to openSUSE Leap 42.1:
arista: Replaced by transmageddon.
cadabra: The source code no longer builds. The successor, Cadabra 2 is not stable yet.
dropbear: Removed because there are no relevant advantages over openssh.
emerillon: Replaced by gnome-maps.
gnome-system-log: Replaced by gnome-logs.
hawk: Replaced by hawk2.
ksnapshot: Replaced by spectacle.
labplot: Labplot has been replaced by its Qt5 version, called labplot-kf5. If you are updating from an openSUSE Leap 42.1 installation on which labplot is installed, you will receive the labplot-kf5 automatically.
nodejs: Renamed to nodejs4.
psi: Replaced by psi+.
python-moin: Replaced by moinmoin-wiki. Purely a rename, not a version upgrade - a virtually identical drop-in replacement.
seamonkey: Source code no longer compiles. If you were a Seamonkey user previously, switch to Mozilla Firefox and Mozilla Thunderbird instead.
ungifsicle: Replaced by gifsicle.
xchat: Replaced by hexchat.
/var/cache contains a lot of very volatile data, such as the Zypper cache with RPM packages in different versions for each update. As a result of storing data that is mostly redundant but highly volatile, the amount of disk space a snapshot occupies can increase very fast.
To solve this, move /var/cache to a separate subvolume. On fresh installations of openSUSE Leap 42.2, this is done automatically. To convert an existing root file system, perform the following steps:
Find out the device name (for example, /dev/sda2 or /dev/sda3) of the root file system:
df /Identify the parent subvolume of all the other subvolumes. For openSUSE 13.2 installations, this is a subvolume named @. To check if you have a @ subvolume, use:
btrfs subvolume list / | grep '@'If the output of this command is empty, you do not have a subvolume named @. In that case, you may be able to proceed with subvolume ID 5 which was used in older versions of openSUSE.
Now mount the requisite subvolume.
If you have a @ subvolume, mount that subvolume to a temporary mount point:
mount <root_device> -o subvol=@ /mntIf you don't have a @ subvolume, mount subvolume ID 5 instead:
mount <root_device> -o subvolid=5 /mnt
/mnt/var/cache can already exist and could be the same directory as /var/cache. To avoid data loss, move it:
mv /mnt/var/cache /mnt/var/cache.oldCreate a new subvolume:
btrfs subvol create /mnt/var/cacheIf there is now a directory /var/cache.old, move it to the new location:
mv /var/cache.old/* /mnt/var/cacheIf that is not the case, instead do:
mv /var/cache/* /mnt/var/cache/Optionally, remove /mnt/var/cache.old:
rm -rf /mnt/var/cache.oldUnmount the subvolume from the temporary mount point:
umount /mntAdd an entry to /etc/fstab for the new /var/cache subvolume. Use an existing subvolume as a template to copy from. Make sure to leave the UUID untouched (this is the root file system's UUID) and change the subvolume name and its mount point consistently to /var/cache.
Mount the new subvolume as specified in /etc/fstab:
mount /var/cache
In Leap 42.1, the Synaptics X driver (package xf86-input-synaptics) was installed by default but had a lower priority than the libinput driver (xf86-input-libinput).
Starting with Leap 42.2:
The Synaptics X driver is no longer installed by default.
If the Synaptics X driver is installed, it will take precedence for any touchpad devices.
The Synaptics X driver is no longer supported by GNOME. This means when the driver is installed, Synaptics touchpads can only be configured to the extent that a basic mouse can.
Unless you are using a Synaptics touchpad and have a large amount of custom configuration for the Synaptics driver, remove the package from your system:
In openSUSE Leap 42.1, the default page size on AArch64 platforms was 64 kB. With openSUSE Leap 42.2, the page size has been changed to 4 kB. This renders old Swap and Btrfs file systems unusable.
If you are currently on openSUSE Leap 42.1 on AArch64, consider a fresh installation of openSUSE Leap 42.2 instead of upgrading.
The following notes apply to upgrades from openSUSE 13.2 or older. Make sure to also review the information provided in Section 2.1, “Upgrading from openSUSE Leap 42.1”.
When upgrading a remote machine from openSUSE 13.2, make sure your network interfaces are named correctly.
openSUSE 13.2 used so-called predictable network interface names (for example, enp5s0), whereas openSUSE Leap 42.1 uses persistent interface names (eth0). After upgrading and rebooting, the network interface names may therefore change. This could lock you out of the system. To avoid interfaces from being renamed, run the following command for each of your network interfaces before you reboot the system:
Replace enp5s0 with the name of your network interface.
openSUSE 13.2 used a Btrfs partition layout that allowed for disk space to become permanently occupied with stale, inaccessible contents after the first system rollback was executed. This layout issue has been fixed in openSUSE Leap 42.1. However, the fix can only be applied to newly installed systems.
If you are upgrading from openSUSE 13.2, you cannot convert the file system to the new layout, but you can reclaim the lost disk space.
Mount the initial root filesystem:
mount /dev/<ROOT_FILE_SYSTEM> -o subvolid=5 /mntRemove all files below /mnt that are not in a subvolume:
find /mnt -xdev -deleteUmount the filesystem again:
umount /mnt
CUPS Version Upgrade to 1.7
Compared to CUPS 1.5 in openSUSE 13.2 CUPS 1.7 introduced some major changes that may require manual configuration adjustments.
PDF is now the standard print job format rather than PS. Therefore traditional PostScript printers now also need a filter driver for printing.
See https://en.opensuse.org/Concepts_printing for details.
The network printer discovery protocol has changed. The native method to discover network printers is now based on DNS Service discovery (DNS-SD, that is, via Avahi). The cups-browsed service from the cups-filters package can be used to bridge old and new protocols. Both cupsd and cups-browsed need to run to make "legacy" clients discover printers (that includes LibreOffice and KDE).
The IPP protocol default version changed from 1.1 to 2.0. Older IPP servers like CUPS 1.3.x (for example in SUSE Linux Enterprise 11) reject IPP 2.0 requests with Bad Request (see http://www.cups.org/str.php?L4231).
To be able to print to old servers, the IPP protocol version must be specified explictly by appending /version=1.1 to either:
The ServerName settings in client.conf (for example, ServerName older.server.example.com/version=1.1).
The CUPS_SERVER environment variable value.
The server name value of the -h option of the command line tools, for example:
lpstat -h older.server.example.com/version=1.1 -p
Some printing filters and back-ends were moved from the cups package to the cups-filters package.
Some configuration directives were split from cupsd.conf into cups-files.conf (see http://www.cups.org/str.php?L4223, CVE-2012-5519, and https://bugzilla.opensuse.org/show_bug.cgi?id=789566).
CUPS banners and the CUPS test page were moved from the cups package to the cups-filters package (see http://www.cups.org/str.php?L4120 and https://bugzilla.opensuse.org/show_bug.cgi?id=735404).
This section lists general issues with openSUSE Leap 42.2 that do not match any other category.
openSUSE Leap 42.2 ships two versions of the KDE PIM (Kontact, KMail, etc.) suite:
The legacy 4.x version
The version based on KDE Frameworks 5
KDE PIM 4.x is no longer supported by upstream KDE, but was kept to avoid disrupting user workflows.
The two versions of KDE PIM are not co-installable. Some software, such as KNode (package knode) require the legacy 4.x version and will be uninstalled when installing any package from KDE PIM 5.x (for example, the package kmail5).
KDE PIM 4.x will be removed in the next version of openSUSE Leap. Therefore, you are encouraged to switch to the newer 5.x version.
However, not all settings are migrated from the older version at this time. For more information, see the bug report at https://bugzilla.opensuse.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1001872).
When using GNOME Shell together with a login manager other than GDM, such as SDDM or LightDM, the screen will not blank or lock. Additionally, switching users without logging out is not possible.
To be able to lock the screen from GNOME Shell, enable GDM as your login manager:
Make sure that the package gdm is installed.
Open YaST and from it, open .
Navigate to › › .
In the text box, specify gdm. To save, click .
Reboot.
Read the README documents on the medium.
View a detailed changelog information about a particular package from its RPM:
rpm --changelog -qp FILENAME.rpmReplace FILENAME with the name of the RPM.
Check the ChangeLog file in the top level of the medium for a chronological log of all changes made to the updated packages.
Find more information in the docu directory on the medium.
https://doc.opensuse.org/ contains additional or updated documentation.
Visit https://www.opensuse.org for the latest product news from openSUSE.
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Thanks for using openSUSE.
The openSUSE Team.
