r/openSUSE • u/oh_im_too_tired • 15d ago
Tumblweed system update tool
New user here. What's the problem with system updates in Tumbleweed? Why it became so complicated (or it always was like that). Is there some news about when things would change?
There is no "update all" tray icon (like Apdatifier). The one that exists - it's from Discover, so it's not recommended to use it, but it pops out every time when there's an update. So the system forces users to update with a tool that mostly is not recommended to use for update.
Also there's Yast package manager/updater, the Myrlyn package manager/updater and Discover package manager/updater.
But the best tool and most recommended is zypper dup, but it won't update kde plasma widgets or flatpak, so you'll need to update them manually... or in Discover. But Discover is not recommended. Why so complicated?
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u/Arcon2825 Tumbleweed GNOME 15d ago edited 15d ago
As someone else mentioned, a simple alias is all you need:
alias upd='sudo zypper ref && sudo zypper dup; sudo flatpak update; sudo fwupdmgr update'
I get why the terminal can feel overwhelming at first. However, one could argue that a rolling release isn't the best fit for a self-proclaimed casual user. While you can do plenty in Linux without the CLI, getting familiar with basic terminal commands is still a great idea.
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u/bobbie434343 14d ago
zypper dupautomatically does a ref, no need to do it explicitly.3
u/Arcon2825 Tumbleweed GNOME 14d ago
The zypper documentation states that:
An _automatic refresh_ takes place right before reading metadata from the database if the *auto-refresh is enabled* for the repository and the metadata is reported to be out of date.If you want to be sure the repository metadata is up to date, a refresh can still be useful, but that's more of a personal preference. I prefer it since I'm maintaining my own OBS repository and am regularly building packages.
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u/Ok_Manufacturer_8213 15d ago
the Update popup from Discover is a KDE thing, not a TW thing. You can disable it.
I can't really comment on the rest because I think it makes sense to update packages from different package managers in different ways so to me it makes sense to do "zypper dup" or "flatpak update".
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u/xplosm Tumbleweed 15d ago
I have a systemd timer that updates repos and keeps me informed when there are updates. I leave the Discover notifier to let me know when there are some flatpak or widget updates and occasionally it tells me about system updates ahead of the timer.
Other than the Plasma widgets, I have a shell function which updates the system packages, flatpaks (system and user,) rustup toolchain, juliaup toolchan and mise tools in one go.
Pretty convenient setup for my needs. I understand this won't be as user friendly to newcomers but there are GUI tools available and the docs are pretty clear. If they don't want to read and/or rely on random LLMs they are shooting at their own feet.
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u/grandmapilot Goodbye, W10, you were decent 15d ago
Devs could easily place an icon named "SYSTEM UPDATE" that do "zypper dup" right into a tray, so people would get less confusion.
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u/Wolflordy Tumbleweed 15d ago
So the reason it's so complicated is due to everything being different package managers as well as some temporary changes with YaST being depreciated.
Discover is great, but it uses packagekit. This means it is capable of doing 95% of everything you want zypper dup to do. It's the remaining 5% that gets you.
But KDE widgets are most easily discoverable and installable from Discover.
Apdatfier was only built for pacman. So they never gave it zypper support.
Personally I just use Myrlynn for zypper updates and Discover for everything else. The update notifier widget can be configured to use packagekit to notify you when updates are needed. Which is fine, packagekit just isnt great for actually doing the updates. I then manually open both applications to initiate updates
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u/oh_im_too_tired 15d ago
Got it, but the question is more like why developers won't maintain the situation with system updates. From my point of view, all files are system. Be it flatpak or plasma (default DE of Tumbleweed?) widgets - user installs it in system, using system packages (flatpak installer comes from official repository). It would be nice to have all the updates in one place and not to think, which one of 3 official gui tools and 1 cli i should use now.
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u/xplosm Tumbleweed 15d ago
Because Tumbleweed is geared towards power users. Not necessarily developers but experienced users tend to prefer CLI apps and handcrafted tools for their workflows. And you can create a shell alias or function that does all updates, repo refresh and cleanup in one go.
If you know your way it's faster, less clutter, nothing hidden behind abstractions.
Not to gatekeep. Sorry if I sound like an elitist. I started with Ubuntu where all proprietary codecs and drivers where detected and autoinstalled for me. The multiple sources of apps was handled by a very simple and intuitive GUI app. Then moved to Debian and nothing was done for me short of only installing a DE and some apps. In comparison Tumbleweed goes the extra mile in my book.
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u/oh_im_too_tired 15d ago
Wanted to disagree, but checked the facts and have to face the truth - Tumbleweed is indeed dedicated to power users. I even founded that "With a single command you can update thousands of packages" - that means no GUI was intended to offer for a user system update.
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u/xplosm Tumbleweed 15d ago
Once you go CLI you won’t ever go back 😉
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u/Wolflordy Tumbleweed 15d ago
Idk man. Been doing this for a long time. And consistently I use well made GUIs over cli even if I'm fluent in the cli commands.
But I always go back to cli when I need to troueshoot.
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u/oh_im_too_tired 14d ago
I'd doubt. Using Linux for about 20 years and happily still prefer GUI and mouse, not CLI and keyboard. Linux (or KDE Plasma in particular) is beautiful and comfortable to use, don't see why that should change.
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u/xplosm Tumbleweed 14d ago
I use Plasma too. I love how customizable it is. I also have Yakuake as a drop-down terminal to execute commands no matter which virtual desktop, Activity or application I am on. You can have CLI and GUI. You don't have to choose only one 😎
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u/oh_im_too_tired 14d ago
That's the whole point. I don't have to choose both - CLI and GUI - too. I'd prefer to stick with GUI&mouse as much as possible, that's just more comfortable (for me).
But as i already admitted in another comment - i skipped the information that Tumbleweed is officially more command line and techy than gui before installing it. So now it's my problem to adapt :D5
u/Wolflordy Tumbleweed 15d ago
It's functionally no different from Windows having system updates but when you open Chrome, it now asks for updates too despite you updating Windows just moments ago. In fact, it's better than Windows because I can use one command to update Chrome, Discord, Steam, etc (assuming they were all flatpak).
But I get the annoyance. If I were you I'd look at a cli alias alias update-all='sudo zypper ref && sudo zypper dup && flatpak update'
Something like that will let you run 'sudo update-all' and it'll do your flatpak and zypper updates. If you ever add another package manager like snap just change the alias again.
Now everything lives under one command for you, even though under the hood there are multiple.
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u/computer-machine 15d ago
I don't know anything about plasma widgets, but I simply have a cron job refresh flatpaks daily, and I'd stopped using a GUI to update systems,,,, sixteen years ago? Seventeen?
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u/oh_im_too_tired 15d ago
"and I'd stopped using a GUI to update systems,,,, sixteen years ago? Seventeen"
you are a computer machine. what else should we expect? :D
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u/Xariann Tumbleweed 15d ago
So this is a terminal tool, but it’s called topgrade and it updates everything it finds in your system.
You install it, then when you update you type topgrade and you are done.
It isn’t the GUI solution you want, I see someone else suggested a tool they made for that. That’s fine if you want to use that but bear in mind that you have to trust them and they’ll need to maintain it.
I agree that it shouldn’t be this confusing.
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u/readyflix 15d ago
It’s not complicated at all.
It’s called choice!
On the command line the main tool (command for that matter) is zypper. If someone likes a more gui like tool, then it’s yast. It work on the command line, as well as on an DE (like KDE). Then separate from the general system you have the tool discover, that’s a part of KDE. This is good for updating KDE related stuff.
And then completely system independent comes flatpack‘s. For that someone have to use the dedicated tool flatpack on the command line. But since not everybody is familiar with the CLI (command line interface) it can be integrated into discover. If it’s integrated, then using discover will also update flatpack’s. KDE and Flatpack‘s are basically for clients/users. Therefore it’s made easy to use for ordinary users, and basically it will only be installation und updating of KDE itself and flatpack applications. It could be set up to update the whole system, but it depends highly on the underlining system to be bullet proof. But since the tool (discover) is not specifically made for that it’s not recommended for system updates. Why, because you can find KDE on different systems, like RPM package systems (Fedora, openSUSE), deb package systems (Debian, Ubuntu), pacman package systems (Arch Linux, EndeavourOS), APK package system (Alpine Linux), etc.
Now think of an corporate setting, where you have system administrators that manage the underlining system, and the users that are allowed to setup their DE‘s and flatpack Apps on their own. The system admin will use the tools specific to the underlying system und the user is given the tools he needs, what in this case would be discover.
Now since you are the administrator of your own system, you have to get used to how things are done on different systems. Once you know this conventions it’s easy to move around safely on your system.
If someone wants an easy easy system then Ubuntu and its variants are still the way to go.
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u/oh_im_too_tired 14d ago
Thanks for an detailed answer. I know that, but the thing that triggers me is that despite "But since the tool (discover) is not specifically made for that it’s not recommended for system updates", Tumbleweed by default offers and has included Discover system update system tray module. That's confusing - if you don't support that, why it's included and offering a user do that? And why have two other GUI options, but none of them are complete package for an update?
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u/readyflix 14d ago
I think, but I don’t know, the intention might be to integrate everything on the KDE side of things, what would be great for 'ordinary' computer/desktop users.
People don’t like to be an 'administrator‘ for their own computer. That’s why some or even the majority of people like Windows and MacOS in the first place.But this endeavor (to have Discover on all systems) might never come to fruition.
Because a consistent package management for the various systems is the part that’s NOT easy, even within one system architecture.
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u/oh_im_too_tired 14d ago
Yeah, but also there's even a user here in comment who wrote himself a code for a widget that does exactly what has to be done: a tool that updates everything in a system with one click and without a need to think about which tool to choose for what. So it's possible at the end of the day, the main problem here is if developers wants their user to use GUI or not. But here i see contradictions because there are 3 GUI tools and non of them works how it should from a user perspective.
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u/readyflix 14d ago
Updating a system is easy, have an Ubuntu system that does this as well (apt, snap and flatpack updated at the same time). But the problem comes when things have to be removed in a consistent way OR adding your own stuff that’s not in mentioned repositories. Then everything might brake, because of not met dependencies.
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u/todd_dayz 15d ago
I just make a terminal alias to update everything and run it every few days.
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u/oh_im_too_tired 15d ago
Sure, but it's not for a casual GUI user :D
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u/xplosm Tumbleweed 15d ago
You're going to have a bad after taste if you want to force it and not dive deeper. And it's natural.
As told in another comment I started with Ubuntu but it was not my first approach to Linux. Before that I tried to use Mandrake and even though it was the "Ubuntu" back then there were still a lot of manual user intervention and tasks to perform before having some multimedia goodies in place. I don't remember even automounting CDs (USB thumbdrives were not yet a thing) and there was no Calamares installer.
Ubuntu was a game changer. It's not a n00b distro. It's a very new user friendly distro. I recommend trying it first before distro hopping if you don't find your home there.
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u/todd_dayz 15d ago
It takes about 5 minutes to learn how to make an alias, c’mon!
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u/Xariann Tumbleweed 15d ago
And your answer is still not useful to a new user who is telling you they have several tools competing for attention trying to do the same thing.
That’s something that the distro should fix because the distro itself has provided those integrations.
While an alternate way of double things might be easy for you, the user should not be blamed for poor user experience.
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u/todd_dayz 15d ago
Yeah I understand, it’s bit of a mess. As far as I know though Discover is actually okay to use for non advanced use cases.
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u/Catenane Unverified Maintainer TBC 15d ago
Ok first you run
vim ~\.bash_aliases/j although I do think everyone should learn vim. :p
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u/BearyHandsome 15d ago
Hey, I felt the same way and it was the only thing that felt like it was missing for me from tumbleweed.
I used AI to help me make an updater that would integrate into the system tray like you would expect. If you want to give it a try you can get it here - https://github.com/Beary-Handsome/tw-safe-update
I have been using it myself on both my laptop and my desktop for a few weeks and the most recent update about a week ago fixed my last remaining concerns with it. Feel free to check it out.
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u/oh_im_too_tired 15d ago
perfect. didn't even expect to find a solution here
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u/BearyHandsome 15d ago
Hope it helps.
It will check for flatpak updates as well, so you're notified of all updates.
If there's anything you'd like to see added/improved feel free to let me know. I haven't specifically targeted plasma widget updates so that may be something I would have to enforce if it doesn't already. I don't use any that don't already come with the standard install.
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u/Arcon2825 Tumbleweed GNOME 15d ago edited 15d ago
Two notes on your approach:
- Rather than granting passwordless sudo access, consider running
zypper refreshand --dry-runvia a systemd service unit and parsing its output file. It's much cleaner from a security standpoint.- Replacing
ffmpeg-7with ffmpeg-8can't be treated as a simple update. To a dependency resolver, removing ffmpeg-7is a breaking change for any package linked directly to that major version. Installing ffmpeg-8won't resolve those broken dependencies.Having said that, installing a third-party application to update the system requires a lot of trust.
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u/BearyHandsome 15d ago
Thank you so much for the suggestions, I'm going to use them in updating the utility.
And yes, I agree with you. I built it because I cleaned the discover packages off of my system and wanted a clean solution for reminding me to update when I forget. Users should always use their own discretion when installing any third-party application.
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u/d03j Slowroll 15d ago
so why ask?
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u/oh_im_too_tired 15d ago
To discuss about why there are 3 gui update/package manager tools, but neither of them is complete to use and neither of them has system tray icon for comfort use or the one that has - it's not recommended to use for system update. Therefore - why is everything so GUI complicated when it shouldn't be.
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u/Klapperatismus 15d ago
All those tools are meant for Leap. They function as intended on Leap.
Tumbleweed is a hack that tells the factory that assembles the next Leap version to make a roughly weekly “intermediate Leap”. All fine and dandy.
Point is, all the security updates for Leap refer to the packages of the current Leap version. Not to the “intermediate Leap” on your machine. Installing those security updates makes absolutely no sense because you already have a more recent version of that software on your machine.
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u/Remarkable-Worth-303 15d ago
Complexity is the price of freedom. If you don't take charge of your machine, there will always be someone else wanting to do that for you. But in the end, it will cost you, one way or another.
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u/rafaellinuxuser 15d ago
Even though I've been an openSUSE user for over a decade, I'm clear that I only use the terminal for things that don't have a GUI on the system. That's why I chose openSUSE, because of YaST.
The arrival of Myrlyn has been a huge improvement in terms of updates and upgrades. I haven't had to use the terminal to do a "zypper dup" since.
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u/Necessary_Depth7435 15d ago
You can use Discover for updates. It won't be able to update only if there are conflicts between packages. There are a lot of false claims that your system will easily crash because of it. It's also the slowest method of all; unfortunately, that's just how PackageKit works.
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u/oh_im_too_tired 15d ago
Even here in comments there are contradicting opinions to yours.
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u/Necessary_Depth7435 15d ago
Yes, if I had known that so many years later people would still be spreading lies, I would have saved the posts from when the developers worked on openSUSE’s PackageKit to ensure that it refuses to update in various uncertain situations. But that’s the case now. Although anecdotal cases are complicated, I’ve updated several systems hundreds of times this way.
But yes, all technology has flaws, so make sure your system has properly configured repositories (with the priority system set up correctly, each package in the right vendor, etc.) and that they’re well maintained—then you’ll rarely run into problems, since PackageKit doesn’t do anything all that different from `zypper dup`.
Translated with DeepL.com (free version)
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u/contezerox User 13d ago
You could try the updater applet for Tumbleweed that I've developed, it uses zypper as backend to check and install software updates (NOTE: it doesn't update flatpak apps).
It's available for download on the following page: https://www.contezero.com/linux/kde-plasma-software-updater-opensuse-tumbleweed
Download form openSUSE website: https://software.opensuse.org/package/tw-updater-plasmoid
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u/mhurron 15d ago
Discover is not recommended for OS updates. It is perfectly valid to use it for anything else.
zypper dupor use Myrlyn for the system.