openSUSE Leap 15.5

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: 2023-02-17, Version: 15.5.20230217.0201358

1 Installation
2 System Upgrade
3 Packaging Changes
4 Drivers and Hardware
5 Desktop
6 General
7 More Information and Feedback

This is the initial version of the release notes for the forthcoming openSUSE
Leap 15.5.

If you upgrade from an older version to this openSUSE Leap release, see
previous release notes listed here: https://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 Leap 15.5 in
the openSUSE Bugzilla. For more information, see https://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”.

1 Installation

This section contains installation-related notes. For detailed installation
instructions, see the documentation at https://doc.opensuse.org/documentation/
leap/startup/html/book.opensuse.startup/part-basics.html.

1.1 Using Atomic Updates With the System Role Transactional Server

The installer supports the system role Transactional Server. This system role
features an update system that applies updates atomically (as a single
operation) and makes them easy to revert should that become necessary. These
features are based on the package management tools that all other SUSE and
openSUSE distributions also rely on. This means that the vast majority of RPM
packages that work with other system roles of openSUSE Leap 15.5 also work with
the system role Transactional Server.

Note

Note: Incompatible Packages

Some packages modify the contents of /var or /srv in their RPM %post scripts.
These packages are incompatible. If you find such a package, file a bug report.

To provide these features, this update system relies on:

  • Btrfs snapshots.  Before a system update is started, a new Btrfs snapshot
    of the root file system is created. Then, all the changes from the update
    are installed into that Btrfs snapshot. To complete the update, you can
    then restart the system into the new snapshot.

    To revert the update, simply boot from the previous snapshot instead.

  • A read-only root file system.  To avoid issues with and data loss because
    of updates, the root file system must not be written to otherwise.
    Therefore, the root file system is mounted read-only during normal
    operation.

    To make this setup work, two additional changes to the file system needed
    to be made: To allow writing user configuration in /etc, this directory is
    automatically configured to use OverlayFS. /var is now a separate subvolume
    which can be written to by processes.

Important

Important: Transactional Server Needs At Least 12 GB of Disk Space

The system role Transactional Server needs a disk size of at least 12 GB to
accommodate Btrfs snapshots.

Important

Important: YaST Does Not Work Transactional Mode

Currently, YaST does not work with transactional updates. This is because YaST
performs things immediately and because it cannot edit a read-only filesystem.

To work with transactional updates, always use the command transactional-update
instead of YaST and Zypper for all software management:

  • Update the system: transactional-update up

  • Install a package: transactional-update pkg in PACKAGE_NAME

  • Remove a package: transactional-update pkg rm PACKAGE_NAME

  • To revert the last snapshot, that is the last set of changes to the root
    file system, make sure your system is booted into the next to last snapshot
    and run: transactional-update rollback

    Optionally, add a snapshot ID to the end of the command to rollback to a
    specific ID.

When using this system role, by default, the system will perform a daily update
and reboot between 03:30 am and 05:00 am. Both of these actions are
systemd-based and if necessary can be disabled using systemctl:

systemctl disable --now transactional-update.timer rebootmgr.service

For more information about transactional updates, see the openSUSE Kubic blog
posts https://kubic.opensuse.org/blog/2018-04-04-transactionalupdates/ and
https://kubic.opensuse.org/blog/2018-04-20-transactionalupdates2/.

1.2 Installing on Hard Disks With Less Than 12 GB of Capacity

The installer will only propose a partitioning scheme if the available hard
disk size is larger than 12 GB. If you want to set up, for example, very small
virtual machines images, use the guided partitioner to tune partitioning
parameters manually.

1.3 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-installation of Windows 8 or later 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.

1.4 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.

2 System Upgrade

This section lists notes related to upgrading the system. For supported
scenarios and detailed upgrade instructions, see the documentation at:

  • https://en.opensuse.org/SDB:System_upgrade

  • https://doc.opensuse.org/documentation/leap/startup/html/book-startup/
    cha-update-osuse.html

Additionally, check Section 3, “Packaging Changes”.

3 Packaging Changes

3.1 Deprecated Packages

Deprecated packages are still shipped as part of the distribution but are
scheduled to be removed the next version of openSUSE Leap. These packages exist
to aid migration, but their use is discouraged and they may not receive
updates.

To check whether installed packages are no longer maintained, make sure that
the lifecycle-data-openSUSE package is installed, then use the command:

zypper lifecycle

3.2 Removed Packages

Removed packages are not shipped as part of the distribution anymore.

  • gnome-todo: gnome-todo was replaced by package Endeavour.

    msgpack: msgpack was replaced by msgpack-c and msgpack-cxx.

    nodejs-electron: This old version of Electron is EOL, and we are unable to
    support this runtime throughout Leap's lifetime due to frequent ABI breaks.
    Current versions of Electron are still available from the
    devel:languages:nodejs repository on OBS.

4 Drivers and Hardware

4.1 Secure Boot: Third-Party Drivers Need to Be Properly Signed

Starting with openSUSE Leap 15.2, kernel module signature check for third-party
drivers (CONFIG_MODULE_SIG=y) is now enabled. This is an important security
measure to avoid untrusted code running in the kernel.

This may prevent third-party kernel modules from being loaded if UEFI Secure
Boot is enabled. Kernel Module Packages (KMPs) from the official openSUSE
repositories are not affected, because the modules they contain are signed with
the openSUSE key. The signature check has the following behavior:

  • Kernel modules that are unsigned or signed with a key that is either known
    as untrusted or cannot be verified against the system's trusted key data
    base will be blocked.

It is possible to generate a custom certificate, enroll it into the system's
Machine Owner Key (MOK) data base, and sign locally compiled kernel modules
with this certificate's key. Modules signed in this manner will neither be
blocked nor cause warnings. See https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:UEFI.

Since this also affects NVIDIA graphics drivers, we addressed this in our
official packages for openSUSE. However, you need to manually enroll a new MOK
key after installation to make the new packages work. For instructions how to
install the drivers and enroll the MOK key, see https://en.opensuse.org/
SDB:NVIDIA_drivers#Secureboot.

4.2 Network install image hangs on boot on Raspberry Pi 4

Booting the network install image from USB stick on Raspberry Pi 4 hangs on
boot. To resolve this issue, add the console=tty boot parameter. See details in
the known issues section of our Raspberry Pi 4 Hardware Compatibility List.

5 Desktop

This section lists desktop issues and changes in openSUSE Leap 15.5.

5.1 KDE 4 and Qt 4 removal

KDE 4 packages will not be part of openSUSE Leap 15.4. Please update your
system to Plasma 5 and Qt 5. Some of Qt 4 packages might still remain for
compatability reasons. https://bugzilla.opensuse.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1179613.

6 General

6.1 iotop support

iotop does not display values for SWAPIN and IO %.

Since Linux kernel 5.14, either kernel boot parameter delayacct needs to be
specified or kernel.task_delayacct sysctl needs to be enabled.

7 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.

  • For additional or updated documentation, see https://doc.opensuse.org/.

  • For the latest product news, from openSUSE, visit https://www.opensuse.org.

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