openSUSE Leap 42.2

Release Notes

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!

Publication Date: 2016-11-09 , Version: 42.2.20161108

1 Installation
2 System Upgrade
3 General
4 More Information and Feedback

The release notes are under constant development. To find out about the latest
updates, see the online version at https://doc.opensuse.org/release-notes. The
English release notes are updated whenever need arises. Translated language
version can temporarily be incomplete.

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.

Information about the project is available at https://www.opensuse.org.

To report bugs against this release, use the openSUSE Bugzilla. For more
information, see http://en.opensuse.org/Submitting_Bug_Reports.

1 Installation

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.

1.1 Minimal System Installation

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.

1.2 UEFI—Unified Extensible Firmware Interface

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.

1.3 UEFI, GPT, and MS-DOS Partitions

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.

1.4 Nouveau 3D/DRI Driver May Crash KDE Applications

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
.

2 System Upgrade

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.

2.1 Upgrading from openSUSE Leap 42.1

2.1.1 Removed and Replaced Packages

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.

  • 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.

2.1.2 /var/cache on an Own Subvolume for Snapshots and Rollback

/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:

 1. Find out the device name (for example, /dev/sda2 or /dev/sda3) of the root
    file system:

    df /

 2. 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.

 3. Now mount the requisite subvolume.

      □ If you have a @ subvolume, mount that subvolume to a temporary mount
        point:

        mount <root_device> -o subvol=@ /mnt

      □ If you don't have a @ subvolume, mount subvolume ID 5 instead:

        mount <root_device> -o subvolid=5 /mnt

 4. /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.old

 5. Create a new subvolume:

    btrfs subvol create /mnt/var/cache

 6. If there is now a directory /var/cache.old, move it to the new location:

    mv /var/cache.old/* /mnt/var/cache

    If that is not the case, instead do:

    mv /var/cache/* /mnt/var/cache/

 7. Optionally, remove /mnt/var/cache.old:

    rm -rf /mnt/var/cache.old

 8. Unmount the subvolume from the temporary mount point:

    umount /mnt

 9. Add 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.

10. Mount the new subvolume as specified in /etc/fstab:

    mount /var/cache

2.1.3 Synaptics X Driver Can Degrade Touchpad Experience Under GNOME

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:

sudo zypper rm xf86-input-synaptics

2.2 Upgrading from openSUSE 13.2

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”.

2.2.1 Network Interface Names

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:

/usr/lib/udev/udev-generate-persistent-rule -v -c enp5s0 -n enp5s0 -o /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules

Replace enp5s0 with the name of your network interface.

2.2.2 Btrfs: Disk Space Leak after System Rollbacks

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.

 1. Mount the initial root filesystem:

    mount /dev/<ROOT_FILE_SYSTEM> -o subvolid=5 /mnt

 2. Remove all files below /mnt that are not in a subvolume:

    find /mnt -xdev -delete

 3. Umount the filesystem again:

    umount /mnt

2.2.3 Printing System: Improvements and Incompatible Changes

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).

3 General

This section lists general issues with openSUSE Leap 42.2 that do not match any
other category.

3.1 KDE Software for Personal Information Management (KDE PIM)

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).

4 More Information and Feedback

  • Read the README documents on the medium.

  • View a detailed changelog information about a particular package from its
    RPM:

    rpm --changelog -qp FILENAME.rpm

    Replace 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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