I upgraded an openSUSE box from 15.2 to 15.3. Previous upgrades worked as I expected: installed software was upgraded but nothing not needed was installed. This upgrade however re-installed openSUSE's default software (default web browser, default mail client, default music and video players, etc.). I'll uninstall them, but what might I have done wrong during the upgrade that could have caused that? I ask because I have several other boxes to upgrade and I'd prefer to learn from my mistake before continuing.

What I did to upgrade was what what I always do, follow the offline upgrade instructions at https://en.opensuse.org/SDB:Offline_upgrade. Perhaps there is some new option in the 15.3 upgrade process that I overlooked in my enthusiasm to upgrade?

You can search 'patterns' and taboo the ones you don't want eg 'patterns multimedia' loads the standard a/v stuff. Or you can just taboo the individual packages that you don't want.
You can do this with zypper or yast software management. In yast it's a right click on the item or run

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Pete, thank you for reminding me of patterns. I see that patterns-xfce-xfce lists the applications that were re-installed during upgrade. It is my belief that removing that pattern before upgrading will avoid the problem I reported. I'll try that and report back. (Edit: Yes, that worked.)

You know but lurkers might not that:

- Removing a pattern does not remove the packages that it brought in, so it should be safe to remove a pattern. You don't have to take my word for it though: `sudo zypper remove --dry-run patterns-xfce-xfce` will tell you what the command would remove but doesn't actually do anything.

- If you have a similar problem to mine but don't use Xfce, then you will want to look at the packages for the desktop environment that you use.

I had a feeling you'd know about it but I edited my response and added the brief instructions just in case.
I'm glad I was able to help.

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There were unusual changes in 15.3 caused by the new dependence on SUSE Linux Enterprise packages being used directly in the distro. This caused some unexpected upgrading results that weren't caught soon enough before release, or were caught only afterward. I agree removing patterns prior to upgrade should reduce the unwanted behavior. You could take if further by settingin /etc/zypp/zypp.conf, which should prevent additional recommended packages from being installed.

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I'm reporting back as promised to confirm that the solution is to review and perhaps remove patterns packages before upgrading. In my particular case, that would be:

1. While still running 15.2, `sudo zypper remove patterns-xfce-xfce` or whatever patterns you have that would drag in things you have uninstalled and don't want to see again.
2. Upgrade to 15.3.

Thanks for the confirmation!