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
