Hi. OpenSUSE-12.2 was my first rpm based distro. Previously i have used kubuntu.


I have a laptop and pc. So i will update the os in one machine and transfer the updates to another.

In kubuntu this was fairly easier. Let me say how i manage packages in kubuntu. All updates downloaded in kubuntu will reside in /var/cache/apt/archives/ . So it is only a matter of copying those updates to the corresponding folder of new machine. Also i do the same with package lists which reside in /var/lib/apt/lists/. And i have a slow internet connection . So generally when downloading updates i generate a package download script from synaptic and then download them with some accelerator. After that i push them to /var/cache/apt/archives and install them.

Now coming to openSUSE. Is similar kind of functionality present in opensuse? Where are the downloaded packages saved, and where are the package lists? I checked yast2 and it seems not having the functionality of synaptic. Can i create package download script and download the packages with a download accelerator. pls help..


One more question. I installed opensuse-12.2 and checked for updates. It said there are nearly 700MB of updates available. Is this normal? I mean opensuse12.2 was released nearly a month ago , and 700MB of updates in a month's time??

Yes. In Debian based systems, creating local package repo is fairly easy.

I am not sure about OpenSUSE. However, OpenSUSE does provide an option to install packages directly from a directory. In Yast, in software management, you can add the repository of several types i.e DVD, Community Repo, USB, Local Harddisk Directory. etc.

The packages downloaded in OpenSUSE are stored in /var/cache/zypp/. Inside this path, there will be several different folders usually like OpenSUSE-12.2-Updates, OpenSUSE12.2-oss, Opensuse12.2-non-oss ..... These sub folders will have complete packages downloaded.

One thing to note is that, the packages will be there only if you select "Keep Downloaded Packages" option in Yast->Software Management. (Not remembering exact path in Yast). Otherwise packages will be deleted once installed.

So I usually follow these steps:
1. Enable the needed repo's via Yast and select option "Keep downloaded packages"
2. Edit /etc/zypp/zypp.conf. Search for commit.DownloadInAdvance and set it to true i.e commit.DownloadInAdvance = true
3. Install packages.
4. Copy the .rpms from /var/cache/zypp/ subfolders to a local directory say "Suse_12.2_packages".

Once step 4 is done, you can use that local directory as a local repository on another system and you can install packages from it.

I use a similar system. Saving all the required rpm's manually to a folder. Then I just add the folder as a local source to yast and install them from there. You could then just copy the folder to your laptop.

The reason for all the updates is that opensuse updates kde.