If you haven’t tried openSUSE Tumbleweed in a while, I highly recommend you take it for a spin. I am not using Tumbleweed on the majority of my computers. I have openSUSE Leap on a few but since my experience with Tumbleweed has been so positive it has taken over most of my machines. I will recognize that there can be problems with a rolling model, especially if you have some mission critical requirements with specific pieces of software that are less friendly to the rolling model.
These are features I have known about for a while but I have decided that it should be highlighted again because it is Pure Linux Awesomeness.
Some Cool Things
For the uninitiated on how openSUSE Tumbleweed snapshots work, check out this video. It is less than 2 minutes of information goodness.
Before you do a distribution update and are very concerned about the status of the current snapshot you can review it here:
https://review.tumbleweed.boombatower.com/
At the time of writing, the current snapshot, 20190621, has a bending review percentage of 91. You can review the current or older snapshots to see the score status. You know, just for fun.
Another Really Cool Thing
I have been using Tumbleweed for over two years and this is a feature that I haven’t used but wish I would have sooner. I learned on this page that there is a nifty command line tool for examining the Snapshot status and pinning your Tumbleweed system to a specific snapshot. In effect you can dictate when you allow your Tumbleweed to roll to the next snapshot.
To start out, install Tumbleweed CLI
sudo zypper in tumbleweed-cli
Once installed you have to initialize it.
sudo tumbleweed init
To see what your system’s snapshot status
tumbleweed status
This will output
latest : 20190621
target : 20190621
installed: 20190621
Or similar based on the date you do this.
Although it seems self evident, I want to explain what this truly means.
Latest – What is the latest snapshot available
Target – If you have switched to a particular target, it would be listed there.
Installed – What you have currently installed.
Lets say you updated and are having problems with a regression in, oh, lets say VirtualBox and you really need VirtualBox to work. Since you are directly managing your snapshot status, you can very easily target the last snapshot which had it working but lets say you don’t remember what that snapshot was because you just… well… don’t remember.
tumbleweed list
This will give you a list of what is available. Keep in mind that due to storage limitations, only 20 or so are listed and presumably available.
20190621
20190617
20190614
20190612
20190607
20190606
20190605
20190604
20190603
20190601
20190529
20190527
20190525
20190524
20190521
20190520
20190517
20190516
20190514
20190512
Lets say you remember that you knew that the 20190603 snapshot was the last one that worked exactly to your needs. After your roll your system snapshot back to that date or approximately that date, you can lock your system on that particular snapshot
sudo tumbleweed switch 20190603
Now if you look at your status,
tumbleweed status
You will get something like this:
latest : 20190621
target : 20190603
installed: 20190601
Now you can upgrade to that snapshot
sudo zypper dup
File a bug on whatever is giving you problems
https://bugzilla.opensuse.org/
When you are ready to update to the latest snapshot
sudo tumbleweed switch
That will switch to the latest snapshot. To verify:
tumbleweed status
and get this output (or similar)
latest : 20190621
target : 20190621
installed: 20190603
Update to the latest snapshot
sudo zypper dup
Check the status once again
tumbleweed status
Should get you this:
latest : 20190621
target : 20190621
installed: 20190621
Should you decide that this method doesn’t work for you, you can revert back to the standard Tumbleweed rolling model.
sudo tumbleweed uninit
Like it never even happened.
Final Thoughts
openSUSE Tumbleweed with full (mostly) control of your snapshots is pretty amazing and adds a whole new depth of control to your computer. This truly is like the best of both worlds between Leap and standard Tumbleweed. It does require a little more work than Leap, and perhaps a bit more work than the standard model but this truly is a fantastic feature that makes openSUSE Tumbleweed the best operating system out there.
Of course… that is my opinion. Your opinions may vary.
References
https://review.tumbleweed.boombatower.com/about.html
https://review.tumbleweed.boombatower.com/
http://release-tools.opensuse.org/2017/11/22/Tumbleweed-Snapshots.html
🙂 I would not mind trying out openSUSE Tumbleweed in the near future.
It’s pretty darn great. I have been increasingly happy with it in each passing month.
Great write-up on this Nate. I knew about it but hadn’t really dug into it. I definitely want to check it out now. Thanks!
I hope you have as much fun with it as I have.