Tumbleweed is go

OK I must be a glutton for punishment. Once I had considered that a move to Tumbleweed may be advantageous then the next step is to do it ... and while downloading is easy, it two goes to get a working installation DVD. The first try failed to verify and as expected, failed the media check. Second copy is fine and since the blanks could be 10 years old perhaps to be expected.

I've everything important backed up in parallel on the server, so perhaps I should have started from a clean install, but the upgrade set itself up and announced it was going to create 15Gb of new files. Actually I suspect that many of them were the same files that had already been downloaded, just with different tags. Certainly the version numbers I spotted matched one another, just coming from a different repository. And that was part of the reason for the move as 15 repository entries were deleted in the process.

Of cause I had the update set to download the latest versions rather than using the DVD copies, so I could probably have got away with just downloading the Network version anyway. The problem came when I rebooted, and there was no wired network connection! When the machine was first set up I was using the mobile phone hotspot, and since the motherboard has a wireless hub, I could at least get back to the internet via that. In the good old days, getting windows computers set up when windows did not recognize the hardware was fun so I'm used to the agro. I went through a few suggestions to fix the problem without success, and then spotted that the driver for the r8168 interface chip did not seem to be loaded. It's paired up with a hack to disable the r8169 version which also has problems, but simply 'updating' that pair of files (add names!) and we were good to go. Only took a couple of hours but what is time. Just debating if I should post on the openSUSE forum to give a heads up since the replies I did try were all off target. But knowing I have the mobile backup is also helpful and given that the fibre does slow down at times, it's something I can switch to as a test.

So where am I now? Running a Linux kernel of 6.13.5-1 and KDE Plasma 6.3.2, but the apps list seems to have grown dramatically as scrolling through the system tab to get to the Software Management option is cumbersome, and even the YAST front end is well hidden. Perhaps this is because we are not supposed to use them nowadays? The System Settings window has grown many more entries and again finding my normal tools take longer. At least they do seem to have thought about it, and my key tabs are listed on the Quick Settings page, so hopefully once I've settled in, things will be easier.

Next little irritation was getting printing done. OK I know I should not be printing out stuff, but it's a lot easier to mark up paper than do that on the screen. Except the printer was refusing to pick up paper from the trays and asking me to hand load paper manually on the MP slot. Perhaps if my memory was a little better I would have realised that this problem actually predated the upgrade! A check in with the windows machine showed the same problem, which I eventually tracked down to having put some photo paper through in the week, and the A4 tray was tagged as 'photo', while the MP tray was 'plain paper'. Switch the A4 tray back to 'plain paper' and we are all good. Something I would perhaps have twigged had I got around to reading the manual. I've got the MP tray set for 'photo' now, so I can load that with the right paper as required.

The next layers of fun are going to take a little longer to sort out, although I have options to keep the old systems working. At one time we could run PHP7 and PHP8 besides on another, but the upgrade wiped the PHP7 and replaced it with PHP8. Fortunately I had already configured PHP7.3 and PHP7.4 from my own builds and have them running in parallel. Switching versions is just a matter of using the right port number in nginx for the right php-fpm installation. With PHP8 now available as well. I may need to back-peddle from PHP8.3 when I'm moving all the website code from PHP7.3 but at least that is now fairly easy to manage.

What is more difficult is that Firebird is no longer available on Tumbleweed. It no longer passes the build tests and so has been switched off and when I try to reinstall FB3 it's failing as elements of the installation process are no longer available. It's not a major problem as I have it running on both of the other machines, and whil FB3 failed to install, FB5 is running fine, and Flamerobin is talking to it nicely from the windows box, and I have the test databases all updated to the right disk format. What I am currently missing is a working PHP driver on this machine that can access either the local FB5 or the remote FB3 engines. One on the todo list linked to the new code for php-firebird. I did have a little messing around to get the database.conf file in the right place. While there is a section in etc which is where it should be, it's using a copy in the installation directory instead. What is concerning me currently is that I still use a legacy security system, which had to be manually enabled when disabled IN FB3, but the new install just seems to be working with my existing user name and 8 character password. I know we should be tightening security, but the database access is not enabled outside the network here, and normally only PHP accesses it. If things have been tidied so I can simply now use a longer password then that is great, but not high up on my list of checks.

I've had a quick scout around and all of the KDE5 problems are still present. Such as the unusable tool bar in Eclipse and some other applications. They use 16 pixel high icons, and on a 2160 pixel high screen they are just spots. At least the text areas seem to be more consistent now, so have to fall back on the menu's and continue to disable the icons. I tried to get one of the darker themes loaded. One which says it's for Plasma 6, but it's giving install errors at the moment. I did manage to get my wallpapers back at least, but not via the Systems Setting menu so something else to play with. I do need to replace the left hand monitor with something a bit bigger, but while having three different size monitors was a problem in the past, this build seems a lot more stable on that front.

So that will do for now, and I can concentrate on some of the finer detail later.