OpenSUSE's Zypper package manager finally gets experimental parallel downloads

OpenSUSE has introduced a new Zypper experimental media backend and support for parallel package downloads with the release of libzypp version 17.36.4 and zypper version 1.14.87. Zypper, a command line package manager utilizing libzypp, offers functions such as repository access, dependency solving, and package installation. The recent enhancements aim to improve package management performance by reducing the time needed to fetch packages and metadata.

The update includes two main features: the ability to fetch packages using concurrent connections and a simplified media backend that enhances connection reuse and metadata handling. Both features are currently in an experimental phase and require manual activation by users. Parallel package downloading can be enabled by setting an environment variable before running a Zypper operation, allowing multiple packages to be downloaded simultaneously for improved speed.

These experimental options are now available for users interested in enabling and testing them, ahead of any future default activation.