[PLUG] question on impending upgrade in OS

[King Beowulf]

On 1/10/26 18:04, American Citizen wrote:
> Hello:
>
> I am nervous about upgrading from OpenSuse Leap 15.5 (which is no longer
> supported) to Leap 16.0 (current version)
>
> Should I simply do an upgrade?
>
> Or should I wipe all the folders clean except the /home folder ?? and
> let openSuse Leap 16.0 create brand new information upon doing the upgrade?
>
> My concern is that all the old stuff will be dragged into this upgrade
> and even more disk space be lost.
>
> Any advice?
>
> Randall
>
Hello Randall,

When making a big jump, I usually recommend a full clean install. Also, 
I am not a fan of "rolling releases" - that is just another name for a 
development/test branch - too unstable unless you are happy to do a lot 
of fiddling, and indicates the project people are a bit lazy.

Since a lot can change in a major version upgrade:

1. back up you /home, including the various dot directories - esp .ssh, 
.local and .config - since these store a bunch of configurations etc.

2. back up /etc and any other directory with global configurations 
(network, ssh, etc)

3. clean install

4. copy over data from /home and inspect/merge configurations in /home 
and /etc as needed.  Be careful: desktops like KDE can change quite a 
bit if the version jump is big enough, as can some big software 
projects.  Many distros are dropping X for Wayland. Obviously, copying X 
configs are then not useful.

5. Install new copies of the various software you use. Inspect/merge 
config files as needed, or redo customizations in the program settings.

Finally, here's an idea I use sometimes:

Install Leap 16.0 to a new partition or drive and dual boot with 15.5.  
That way, you have 15.5 to fall back on while you set up 16.0 in case 
anything goes wrong.

-Ed