At the OpenSUSE upgrade page what it takes to upgrade is just to change the repositories to point to the software of the 'destination' system and kind-of 'notices it' and the system then becomes, say, Tumbleweed! So, it means that the versions of software you get defines the version of your distro, and that repos just differ in the versions of software they store. So:Does that mean I can use repos intended to a more up-to-date system on mine ? Would that confuse the package manager ?How does the system notice that it is upgraded when I change the repos ? Is there a certain package whose version is determinant, or there is a specific condition when I change all repos to point to a certain version of the distro ?
Mixing repositories for different OpenSUSE versions
software installation;opensuse;repository;version;software distribution
Yes, you can and probably will confuse your system if you mix repos that are more up to date than the rest of your system. This is because of dependencies. Say, for example, you want the latest wizbang shell, so you add that newer repo to your list. But it needs a new version (for example), of libsomething, and none of your repos have that. Or, worse, you find libsomething and upgrade it too, but now your editor is broken because it needed the old version of libsomething. Note that the package manager normally guards against this, but not always.It doesn't notice there are a new set of scripts until either (a) you tell it, or (b) it tries to auto-update, assuming you have auto-update enabled (and it is, by default, enabled).Normally, when you upgrade, you use zypper dup -- dup stands for distribution upgrade. So you do the following steps (at a high level):- make sure your system is up to date at its current revision level- update your repos: disable current repos, add new ones from new revision level- run zypper dup -- there are variations and options to this command, so  be sure before you run itWhen you run zypper dup it takes care of upgrading everything that needs upgrading.Does that answer your questions?