I have three computers running various Linux distributions including one which I installed Opensuse 13.1 back in November 2013. Since then I have had quite a few software updates but no kernel updates? My other two computers (running Fedora 19 and 20) seem to have kernel updates rather frequently, but none for my Opensuse box? I tried to research this issue via Google but have been unable to find anything regarding this issue.

What am I missing here, folks ?

Thanks

I'm not really sure whether this is an answer, but for openSUSE the policy is that version that you get initially is the version that you keep for the life of the release, except

• if there are security issues
• if there are other major issues that absolutely need fixing

In general, I would guess that this amounts to one or two kernel updates over the 8 months that a version is the 'latest and greatest' and before it is superseded by a subsequent version.

This is not 'rolling release' and it isn't 'a new kernel has come out with new, cool, stuff, let's compile it and make the package available' - that's what a new release is for.

for opensuse
fedora has kernel updates about every week

opensuse is a bit more conservative
while there are updates they are security updates and they have to be tested FIRST

and they are backports to the kernel major version that is in 13.1

Thanks guys

I am not a linux newbie, but its been a long time since I ran Opensuse

There has not been an up-date to the kernel packages yet for opensuse 13.1. Although as explained above these will only be security updates.

If you want to update to the latest kernel (13.3) you can do so from:

http://download.opensuse.org/reposit...HEAD/standard/

Hi there.

OPENSUSE's kernel arrangements IMO are fine -- especially if you are running a few things dependent on the kernel headers etc. For instance I'm running a few Windows Virtual machines which I use for work -- updating the kernel is likely to cause some problems with the pre-compiled VMare modules.

If you want to TEST / DEVELOP this type of stuff -- fine - but I'm quite happy in having relatively long stable release times -- nowadays hardware doesn't change so significantly unlike a few years back so I'm not too sure what frequent kernel updates would bring to the table. (Security updates are another issue but these generally don't fiddle around with the source headers etc and cause problems with installed applications.

Fedora is used a lot by the Red Hat team in testing their systems - obviously you can't get a huge number of Enterprise customers to upgrade frequently --and Red Hat is one of the biggest. One of Fedora's points for developers is that it will have stuff "Hot from the presses" - but OPENSUSE is designed to be more of a USER PRODUCTION desktop rather than a development test bed so public releases will be slower (and I for one am quite happy with this approach -- Similarly Debian uses the same philosophy with maybe even longer lead times between releases).

Cheers

lol - I have recently found Fedora too conservative, particularly in kernel options. :shrug:

suse as is normal for suse has a few different kernels ( like it also has a few different nividia rpm's)
--- from "zypper se kernel" ---
kernel-debug
kernel-default
kernel-desktop
kernel-ec2
kernel-pae
kernel-syms
kernel-trace
kernel-vanilla
kernel-xen

and each dose something different

for your "normal " everyday desktop install use "kernel-desktop"
but if you ARE going to use xen then you need to use "kernel-xen"