# Package Support Levels
**URL:** https://forums.suse.com/t/package-support-levels/21645
**Category:** SLED Applications
**Created:** [September 12, 2011, 4:06pm UTC](https://forums.suse.com/t/package-support-levels/21645 "2011-09-12T16:06:04Z")
**Posts on this page:** 7
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@System1](https://forums.suse.com/u/System1)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2011, 4:06pm UTC](https://forums.suse.com/t/package-support-levels/21645/1 "2011-09-12T16:06:04Z")
Whilst many packages have support levels (described at ‘SUSE Linux
Enterprise Desktop Supported Packages’
([http://support.novell.com/products/desktop/supported\_packages/](http://support.novell.com/products/desktop/supported_packages/)) )
listed for them, many packages have no support level listed. For
example
## Code:
## $ zypper info pidgin | grep ‘^Support Level’ Support Level: unknown
Can anyone enlighten me as to what this means in practice?
I’m also curious as to how it is decided what Support Level a package
is given. What’s the logic in the pidgin package having a no support
level whilst pidgin-sipe is Level 3 and pidgin-otr is Level 2? What is
about kmines (“…the classical Minesweeper game where you have to find
mines by logical deduction”) that merits Level 3 support?
What got me wondering about this is someone in my organisation pointing
at Secunia advisories from late August relating to pidgin which say you
should update to 2.10.0 and asking me how this affects our Linux
machines. Given that pidgin is included in SLED my initial reaction was
that any updates Novell deem necessary will appear in the Updates
channel. However the version of pidgin included in SLED 11 SP1 is 2.6.6
and last updated in December. Which suggests that maybe Novell aren’t
hugely interested in keeping it up to date. I’m wondering if ‘Support
Level: unknown’ is intended to reflect this.
I would ask Novell directly about this but for reasons unknown that one
of my colleagues is trying to figure out, we haven’t been able to raise
Service Requests for the last week or so.
## – mikewillis
mikewillis’s Profile: [http://forums.novell.com/member.php?userid=7510](http://forums.novell.com/member.php?userid=7510)
View this thread: [http://forums.novell.com/showthread.php?t=444559](http://forums.novell.com/showthread.php?t=444559)
---
### Author:  [@system](https://forums.suse.com/u/system)
#### Post date: [September 16, 2011, 7:38pm UTC](https://forums.suse.com/t/package-support-levels/21645/2 "2011-09-16T19:38:37Z")
mikewillis,
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---
### Author:  [@system](https://forums.suse.com/u/system)
#### Post date: [September 16, 2011, 8:04pm UTC](https://forums.suse.com/t/package-support-levels/21645/3 "2011-09-16T20:04:54Z")
On Mon, 12 Sep 2011 13:06:04 GMT
mikewillis [mikewillis@no-mx.forums.novell.com](mailto:mikewillis@no-mx.forums.novell.com) wrote:
[color=blue]
> Whilst many packages have support levels (described at ‘SUSE Linux
> Enterprise Desktop Supported Packages’
> ([http://support.novell.com/products/desktop/supported\_packages/](http://support.novell.com/products/desktop/supported_packages/)) )
> listed for them, many packages have no support level listed. For
> example
>
> ## Code:
>
> ```
> $ zypper info pidgin | grep '^Support Level'
>
> ```
>
> ## Support Level: unknown
>
> Can anyone enlighten me as to what this means in practice?
>
> I’m also curious as to how it is decided what Support Level a package
> is given. What’s the logic in the pidgin package having a no support
> level whilst pidgin-sipe is Level 3 and pidgin-otr is Level 2? What is
> about kmines (“…the classical Minesweeper game where you have to
> find mines by logical deduction”) that merits Level 3 support?
>
> What got me wondering about this is someone in my organisation
> pointing at Secunia advisories from late August relating to pidgin
> which say you should update to 2.10.0 and asking me how this affects
> our Linux machines. Given that pidgin is included in SLED my initial
> reaction was that any updates Novell deem necessary will appear in
> the Updates channel. However the version of pidgin included in SLED
> 11 SP1 is 2.6.6 and last updated in December. Which suggests that
> maybe Novell aren’t hugely interested in keeping it up to date. I’m
> wondering if ‘Support Level: unknown’ is intended to reflect this.
>
> I would ask Novell directly about this but for reasons unknown that
> one of my colleagues is trying to figure out, we haven’t been able to
> raise Service Requests for the last week or so.
>
> [/color]
> Hi Mike
> Do you still need info on this?
–
Cheers Malcolm °¿° (Linux Counter #276890)
openSUSE 11.4 (x86\_64) Kernel 2.6.37.6-0.7-desktop
up 3 days 20:05, 4 users, load average: 0.24, 0.15, 0.21
GPU GeForce 8600 GTS Silent - Driver Version: 280.13
---
### Author:  [@system](https://forums.suse.com/u/system)
#### Post date: [September 16, 2011, 9:16pm UTC](https://forums.suse.com/t/package-support-levels/21645/4 "2011-09-16T21:16:02Z")
Yeah, I guess. As of late today it looks like I can raise Service
Requests again, but the info might be of interest to others too.
## – mikewillis
mikewillis’s Profile: [http://forums.novell.com/member.php?userid=7510](http://forums.novell.com/member.php?userid=7510)
View this thread: [http://forums.novell.com/showthread.php?t=444559](http://forums.novell.com/showthread.php?t=444559)
---
### Author:  [@system](https://forums.suse.com/u/system)
#### Post date: [September 17, 2011, 4:02am UTC](https://forums.suse.com/t/package-support-levels/21645/5 "2011-09-17T04:02:14Z")
On Fri, 16 Sep 2011 18:16:02 GMT
mikewillis [mikewillis@no-mx.forums.novell.com](mailto:mikewillis@no-mx.forums.novell.com) wrote:
[color=blue]
> Yeah, I guess. As of late today it looks like I can raise Service
> Requests again, but the info might be of interest to others too.
>
> [/color]
> Hi
> It looks like repository priorities and repository numbers…
If you change the SLE SDK priorities to 100 and re-check.
–
Cheers Malcolm °¿° (Linux Counter #276890)
openSUSE 11.4 (x86\_64) Kernel 2.6.37.6-0.7-desktop
up 4 days 4:00, 4 users, load average: 0.18, 0.13, 0.14
GPU GeForce 8600 GTS Silent - Driver Version: 280.13
---
### Author:  [@system](https://forums.suse.com/u/system)
#### Post date: [September 18, 2011, 10:06am UTC](https://forums.suse.com/t/package-support-levels/21645/6 "2011-09-18T10:06:02Z")
## Code:
localhost:/home/paulparker # zypper se pidgin
Refreshing service ‘nu\_novell\_com’.
Loading repository data…
Reading installed packages…
S | Name | Summary | Type
–±------------------------------±--------------------------------±----------
i | nautilus-sendto-plugin-pidgin | Pidgin plugin for nautilus-se-\> | package
i | pidgin | GTK±Based Multiprotocol Inst-\> | package
| pidgin | GTK±Based Multiprotocol Inst-\> | srcpackage
i | pidgin-otr | “Off The Record” end-to-end e-\> | package
| pidgin-otr | “Off The Record” end-to-end e-\> | srcpackage
i | pidgin-sipe | Pidgin plugin for connecting → | package
| pidgin-sipe | Pidgin plugin for connecting → | srcpackage
i | sledsp1-pidgin-sipe | Recommended update for pidgin-\> | patch
localhost:/home/paulparker # zypper info nautilus-sendto-plugin-pidgin | grep ‘^Support Level’
Support Level: Level 3
localhost:/home/paulparker # zypper info pidgin | grep '^Support Level’Support Level: Level 3
localhost:/home/paulparker # zypper info pidgin-otr | grep ‘^Support Level’
Support Level: Level 2
localhost:/home/paulparker # zypper info pidgin-sipe | grep '^Support Level’Support Level: Level 3
localhost:/home/paulparker # zypper info sledsp1-pidgin-sipe | grep ‘^Support Level’
localhost:/home/paulparker #
* * *
---
### Author:  [@system](https://forums.suse.com/u/system)
#### Post date: [September 19, 2011, 3:36pm UTC](https://forums.suse.com/t/package-support-levels/21645/7 "2011-09-19T15:36:03Z")
malcolmlewis;2138254 Wrote:[color=blue]
> It looks like repository priorities and repository numbers…
>
> If you change the SLE SDK priorities to 100 and re-check.
> [/color]
## Code:
## $ zypper info pidgin | grep ‘^Support Level’ Support Level: unknown $ zypper info pidgin | grep ‘^Repository’ Repository: sle11sdksp1
On my machine that repo apparently takes precedence over all others.
## Code:
$ # zypper lr -P
# | Alias | Name | Enabled | Refresh | Priority
—±----------------------------±----------------------------±--------±--------±--------
1 | sle11sdksp1 | sle11sdksp1 | Yes | No | 50
2 | sle11sdksp1\_updates | sle11sdksp1\_updates | Yes | No | 50
3 | sle11sdksp1\_updates\_testing | sle11sdksp1\_updates\_testing | Yes | No | 50
4 | sled11\_extras | sled11\_extras | Yes | No | 50
5 | sled11\_extras\_testing | sled11\_extras\_testing | Yes | No | 50
6 | sled11sp1 | sled11sp1 | Yes | No | 50
7 | sled11sp1\_updates | sled11sp1\_updates | Yes | No
(and so on)
* * *
It looks like the priority of repos with the same Priority number is
decided by an alphanumeric sort of their name.
I changed the Priority number of the sled11sp1 repo to something lower
than 50 and now I get
## Code:
$ zypper info pidgin | grep ‘^Support Level’
Support Level: Level 3
$ zypper info pidgin | grep ‘^Repository’
Repository: sled11sp1
* * *
I find this interesting. Firstly it’s made me realise that the
Repository line in the output of ‘zypper info’ does not indicate which
repository the packages was installed from. I thought it did, though I
can’t recall how I came to believe that.
Secondly, it doesn’t even necessarily tell you about the package you
have installed. The pidgin package I actually have installed isn’t in
the sled11sp1, it’s in sled11sp1\_updates.
Thirdly, I had assumed that the Support Level was information contained
in the package somehow, though I’d been unable to work out how. That it
is determined by which ever repo ‘zypper info’ happens to find a package
by that name in would seem to make it somewhat less useful that perhaps
it ought be. I haven’t changed which pidgin package I have installed,
but by altering a number in a .repo I can make alter what level of
support ‘zypper info’ says applies to it. The pidgin package in the SLED
updates repo and the SLE SDK updates repo are identical (same md5sum) so
that zypper can report than as having different support levels is rather
unhelpful.
## – mikewillis
mikewillis’s Profile: [http://forums.novell.com/member.php?userid=7510](http://forums.novell.com/member.php?userid=7510)
View this thread: [http://forums.novell.com/showthread.php?t=444559](http://forums.novell.com/showthread.php?t=444559)