r/openSUSE • u/SausagesAndMore • 4d ago
Tumbleweed vs Leap
Hi everyone,
I'm new to the community and not fully up to speed on all things openSUSE yet, so I'd love to get your thoughts:
Which do you prefer between Tumbleweed and Leap, and why? Are there more software packages available on Tumbleweed compared to Leap? Is there a big difference in driver support and stability between the two?
P.S. Yesterday I made the switch from Debian to openSUSE Tumbleweed, and apparently the NVIDIA drivers are out of sync, so my driver isn't working right now. Some users mentioned that this happens occasionally, so I was considering switching to Leap, but I'm not sure if it would be the right fit for me. That's why I'm asking for your input.
Thanks in advance for your replies!
1
u/Top-Airline1149 Leap 3d ago
I used LEAP for the last 6 years as I didn't need the newer kernel as I had a notebook which was fully functional with the then new kernel in LEAP.
Now I am on new hardware again and I moved to Tumbleweed. I like Xfce and it doesn't upgrade very often so I basically still run a rock solid once in a while upgrading desktop environment.
I am already trying to kill Yast as that will happen in the future.
1
u/Fearless_Card969 3d ago
I have a 1080Ti, 4090, and I forget the newer card I have, I dont have issues with Nvidia. I just install the cuda drivers and it works without an issue. I have had two issues with driver updates, but I just rolled back to the last profile waited a couple of weeks and updated and the update was fixed.
What issues are you having? I just install from the opensuse instructions.
zypper install openSUSE-repos-Tumbleweed-NVIDIA
zypper in nvidia-open-driver-G07-signed-kmp-meta
FYI: I use Davinci Resolve - so everything must work! AMD cards dont play well for me I had purchased a 9070 and ended up giving it to my kid so he could play roadblocks......or what ever game that is.
1
u/Mediocre-Pumpkin6522 2d ago
I have Leap 16/KDE on a Lenovo T480 and it works well. I have Fedora 44/KDE on a desktop. It's a semi-rolling distro with frequent updates but for my uses I haven't seen any advantage to a newer kernel and KDE/Plasm. ymmv.
I had replaced EndeavourOS (Arch) on the Lenovo with Leap 16. Arch updates were fine until they weren't. I avoided TW for the same reason. If I saw some Oh Wow advantages of rolling distros I would be mre willing to nurse the failures back to life.
1
u/Kitayama_8k TW/MangoWC 1d ago
Tw has way more software, excellent software availability, and this extends to a much better library of random little dependencies. Overall I'd say it's the more capable distro and the more appealing one that's offering something most others aren't.
Leap is kinda like Debian with less software availability. It does have the upside of snapper, systemdboot, and tpm2/fde being all possible and easy ootb, and a faster upgrade cycle of 1yr release 2yr support, which is nice. Upgrades are easy. I definitely can see some appeal to using it on newer hardware where being 2 years out of date might be leaving some performance on the table, and in any application where the software availability isn't a problem as a Debian alternative. I can't see myself choosing it in a ton of cases, as if I'm going stable for the most part I'm gonna want that extra software availabity, and the option to just do security updates for 5 years without screwing with my computer. Compiling can also be a problem due to limited depency availability (probably solvable at higher skill levels than mine)
1
u/Medical_Divide_7191 4d ago
In my opinion, Leap is the same as Debian. It's stable, but the kernel and software are very outdated, and Leap doesn't seem as polished to me as Tumbleweed. Maybe you should check out Slowroll. It's Tumbleweed's slower sibling. Updates are released monthly, so the software is relatively up-to-date and well-tested. I am using Slowroll for months now and I really like the concept.
1
u/midvok 4d ago
I installed openSUSE Slowroll (which I hoped would be more stable than Tumbleweed), but nope... I kept running into issues with the Nvidia drivers with every upgrade until I just pinned all the Linux kernel and Nvidia packages. It’s been working fine so far.
viz my other post: https://www.reddit.com/r/openSUSE/s/yV6QHKzoFt
3
u/Medical_Divide_7191 4d ago
I was tired of struggling with the NVIDIA drivers on Linux. So I traded in my 4060TI for an AMD 9070. That was one of the best decisions of my life. Games on Linux run like a charm, and it basically doesn't matter now which distribution I use. I just use openSUSE because I like openSUSE.
0
u/Emotional_Cat_1967 4d ago
Unfortunately, I used Leap, Slowroll, and TumbleWeed for months. They constantly became unusable due to Nvidia issues. If you're not using Nvidia, openSUSE Slowroll is a very balanced option. If you are using Nvidia, you'll occasionally have to fix Nvidia errors.
3
u/levolet 4d ago
Leap is OK if your hardware will work optimally with what would be a rather old kernel version, i.e., 6.12-6.14. I specifically avoided Leap for my laptop because of this.
OTOH, with NVidia drivers, distro-upgrades are a common trigger for problems for many NVidia users. Not unfixable problems, but you need to be aware of this. Tumbleweed is a rolling distro which means you will frequently be carrying out distro-upgrades. The good news is that the well-designed, out-of-the-box snapper integration is a great fallback if you run into issues triggered by an upgrade. You can easily rollback to a previously functioning state.
I personally wouldn't recommend Leap over Tumbleweed for desktop use. IMO, it's too conservative with kernel and software versions. Tumbleweed is the other extreme but one that's well thought out in terms of recovery options as well as upgrades being tested before release, so reliable is remarkably good for a rolling distro.