Hi!

I'm thinking of buying the SUSE distro but I don't know if I should wait for the 8.0 release or if I could buy the 7.3 release and upgrade it to 8.0 using the YAST (or YAST2). Is it even possible to upgrade (using YAST or YAST2) to a new release whitout having to purchase the cd's?

In general, is it better to stick with a X.n (n = 1, 2, etc) release than upgrading to a X.0 release with all it's expected problems? What do you think?

I currently have SuSe 7.3 which comes with an online update feature as do all their versions from 5.0 onwards.
Simplly best for me it seems would be to go to Yast2 and choose the online update feature to get the newest versions of packages. This includes soon KDE3 and other packages which are standard of the 8.0 system.

I think the only big difference is newer documentation and the fact that you won't have to upgrade the entire sytem from 7.3-8.0 via yast2. I would wait for 8.0 though as it contains some newer installation features, which could prove helpful in hardware detection, as well as a pretty new box and stickers.

The bug fix question is irrelevant as 7.3 patches of which there are many are all handled simply through the same Yast2 online update. These fixes are already contained in 8.0. patches are administered in new releases as they come up. SuSe is ahead of other Linux distributions with administering bug fixes and package updates.

Thanks for your posting Thom!

I'll think I will go for the SUSE 8.0.

/JanAn

BTW - you might want to check the mailing lists at Suse about that. I am only subscribed to the multimedialist and got a lot of traffic last weekend about problems with Suse 8.0 - but only from the german list.
Just checked at suse - looks like they punish the germans first with suse 8.0. There seems to be some trouble with the install at times and they only got Yast2 now so if that screws up you are pretty much dead in the water.
No need to check the english list - that version isn't released yet.