How to upgrade openSUSE Leap to openSUSE Tumbleweed

If you're wanting to check out the rolling release version of openSUSE, here's the step-by-step process of upgrading the standard release, Leap, to Tumbleweed.

By Jack Wallen | October 10, 2016, 5:37 AM PST



Recently I decided to give openSUSE Tumbleweed a go. My initial reasoning was so that I could experience the latest iteration of the GNOME desktop, without having to bother with attempting to upgrade Ubuntu GNOME. I knew about Tumbleweed and how it was a rolling release distribution that will always have the latest release of every software stack installed.

What I found, however, was so much more. Yes, Tumbleweed is a rolling distribution (similar to Arch or Gentoo), but Tumbleweed does it a bit differently. And that difference matters.

Consider this. One of the reasons why some are opposed the rolling release distribution is that the cutting edge releases of various software packages can lead to a problem with the system. I've experienced this before, and it's often a nightmare to resolve. Fortunately, the openSUSE developers have figured a way to avoid this and it's genius.
The way of the tumbleweed



Most rolling release distributions upgrade to the latest releases without thinking. So long as the package dependencies are met, the package will be installed. That lack of smart design is what often leads to problems. How openSUSE Tumbleweed gets around this is by building the distribution as a single, cohesive whole. When an update is run, if a package would break the cohesion of the whole (or simply invalidate another package), then all dependent packages are rebuilt as if it were a traditional distribution. This is all handled by way of the Open Build Service.

This makes for an incredibly rock-solid rolling release Linux distribution.

But what if you already have an openSUSE Leap installation, and you want to migrate it over to Tumbleweed? Do you have to download the Tumbleweed ISO image and

Facebook Prohibited From Collecting WhatsApp Data In Germany

The Hamburg Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information has issued an administrative order that prohibits Facebook from collecting data from German WhatsApp users. Facebook was also ordered to delete any of the data that it may have already collected on German WhatsApp users.

The order comes after WhatsApp recently announced that it will automatically begin to share data with Facebook. Users were given the option to manually opt out of the data collection, but for a period of only a month. After that, they would no longer be able to opt out. 

In the U.S., privacy groups such as the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) and the Center for Digital Democracy (CDD) also filed a complaint with the FTC asking the agency to require Facebook to make the data collection an opt-in choice for users, rather than an opt-out one.

According to the Hamburg Commissioner, WhatsApp and Facebook used to be separate entities with their own privacy policies, and when Facebook acquired WhatsApp, it promised no data would be shared between the two. However, the two companies have now gone back on their promises by announcing they will begin to share data with each other, even when users opt out.

The commissioner said that this means the two companies were misleading users, and it’s also an infringement on Germany’s national Data Protection law. He also believes that Facebook should have required permission from every user in advance before collecting WhatsApp data. Data Protection laws in the European Union require that when data is collected, the user must give his or her explicit permission (opt-in) rather than implicit permission (opt-out).

"This administrative order protects the data of about 35 million WhatsApp users in Germany," said the Commissioner.

"It has to be their decision, whether they want to connect their account with Facebook. Therefore, Facebook has to ask for their permission in advance. This has not happened," he added.

The order also accuses Facebook and WhatsApp of collecting contact details of users even if they didn’t have Facebook or WhatsApp accounts.

"According to Facebook, this gigantic amount of data has not yet been collected. Facebook's answer, that this has merely not been done for the time being, is cause for concern that the gravity of the data protection breach will have much a more severe impact," said the Hamburg Commissioner.