<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Fri, Mar 22, 2013 at 11:29 PM, Duncan <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:1i5t5.duncan@cox.net" target="_blank">1i5t5.duncan@cox.net</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
Kevin Krammer posted on Fri, 22 Mar 2013 12:53:01 +0100 as excerpted:<br>
<div class="im"><br>
>> Honestly, why can't KDE SC support seamless update from previous major<br>
>> release? Is it too much work to rewrite config files whose format has<br>
>> changed?<br>
><br>
> This is of course intended to happen, KDE software has had configuration<br>
> and data modification tools for ages. My personal setup has been with me<br>
> for over a decade now, rarely prompting me to reconfigure things.<br>
<br>
</div>FWIW, that's true here as well. I've been running the same kde config,<br>
with /home copied over to new hardware (which on my workstation unlike my<br>
netbook, I upgrade a piece at a time so there's never a new computer,<br>
just a changed out drive, or max-change, a changed out cpu/mobo/memory/gpu<br>
all at the same time, as all the buses and formats had changed so to<br>
upgrade one I had to upgrade them all, but then it's the old hard drive<br>
installed in the new machine) as appropriate, since kde 2.x in late 2001,<br>
when I switched from MS to Linux.<br>
<br>
Yes, that's the same base kde2 config now running kde4. Every once in<br>
awhile, especially after the 2.x to 3.x upgrade and later the 3.x to 4.x<br>
upgrade, a few months after the upgrade I go thru and check file times,<br>
moving files to a backup location if the mtimes haven't bumped since the<br>
update, to see if they get recreated and/or whether they're I lose any<br>
customizations.<br></blockquote><div><br>Major releases, (1.x, 2.x, 3.x, 4.x), use different config directories.<br> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<br>
And yes, there's specific files (the infamous plasma-desktop-appletsrc<br>
being one of them) that I keep extra backups of and usually backup before<br>
any major changes, as I've learned the hard way how difficult it can be<br>
to find and edit out the bad bits on the more complex files if something<br>
does go wrong.<br>
</blockquote><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
And yes, when I hit a problem, I know how to use the bisect method to<br>
narrow it down to a single config file if I have to (tho after doing it a<br>
few times and figuring out the way kde organizes its config, I found I<br>
could often pick the problem file purely by name, or at minimum, reduce<br>
it to a handful of files right away, so the bisect is now often only 3ish<br>
rounds max), and am used to doing just that, in kde config files or using<br>
git to bisect a kernel bug, either way.<br>
<br></blockquote><div><br>I remember reporting a phonon bug a year ago related to the config and deprecated xine backend; but the devs ignored it possibly cause they were rushing through releases, and creating a new tags every 10 days.<br>
</div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
But it really is possible to use the same basic config that long, even<br>
with heavy customizing, and I'm a case in point.<br>
<br>
My problem isn't so much with that, it's with killing support for old<br>
versions before the new versions are sufficiently stable replacements,<br>
ESPECIALLY after promising support "as long as there are users!" That<br>
triggered a drop of a lot of my former kde software choices with the bump<br>
to kde4, when kde was insisting that kde4 was stable and that they<br>
weren't supporting kde3 any longer, at the very SAME time they were<br>
saying on bugs "Oh, that's not ported to kde4 yet." The story repeated<br>
with the akonadification of kdepim; I honestly DID try the akonadified<br>
kmail, but somewhere about the time it lost my 10th mail or so and I was<br>
trying to figure out whether it got caught in akonadi somewhere or was<br>
simply gone (after having to do much of the conversion manually in the<br>
first place because the automated process failed), I asked myself why I<br>
put up with it, why I couldn't just expect, AND HAVE, email that "just<br>
worked", that devs didn't needlessly change something that was working<br>
perfectly fine as it was, breaking it in the process. (Ironically, I<br>
ended up on claws-mail, one of the "short list" of clients I had<br>
evaluated but eventually dropped for kmail, back when I originally<br>
switched from MS and OE. It's still using the same mh-dir mail format it<br>
was back in 2001... and it still works. Only unlike kmail, they didn't<br>
drop a well working solution in a chase for utopia. Had I only chosen it<br>
back then...)<br>
<br>
But, as I said earlier in the thread, that means I'm now running only the<br>
core kde desktop, with nearly all of my "mission critical" apps now non-<br>
kde and to the extent possible, with semantic-desktop not just disabled<br>
at run-time, but without support for it even built at all. Which means I<br>
don't have to worry about a broken kde killing my mail (for instance) any<br>
more. Which means I'm now much freeer to run and /enjoy/ running the kde<br>
pre-releases. =:^)<br>
<br>
And it also means if kde pulls the kde4 stunt again, since it's only the<br>
core kde desktop and a few games I'm running now, it'll be MUCH easier to<br>
drop it entirely, if I have to.<br>
<br>
Fortunately, kde5 aka kde frameworks is supposed to be a much less<br>
disruptive upgrade, and it's going much more modular as well, so it's<br>
much less likely. But THIS time I'm prepared, should it happen. I won't<br>
be caught not viably being able to switch, again.<br>
<br>
Which is even more proof that kde's not going to drop the ball that way<br>
again, because I'm actually prepared for it now, so of course it's not<br>
going to happen. =;^]<br>
<br>
Of course there's the possible upcoming xorg -> wayland switch to worry<br>
about too. That could really upset the Linux desktop environment status<br>
quo in all sorts of interesting ways and I think most of the leading DEs<br>
realize that. But again, I'm much better prepared now, so regardless of<br>
how it turns out or what DE and apps I end up running on wayland and what<br>
kind of promises DEs and their devs make that they ultimately end up<br>
dropping like yesterday's dead fish in a malfunctioning refrigerator, I<br>
expect that switch to be far less personally disruptive than the kde3 -><br>
kde4 upgrade was. Which means to a certain extent I'll be able to sit<br>
back and enjoy the ride instead of sweating it out so badly this time,<br>
and I really am looking forward to that. =:^)<br>
<span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888"><br>
--<br>
Duncan - List replies preferred. No HTML msgs.<br>
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --<br>
and if you use the program, he is your master." Richard Stallman<br>
</font></span><div class="HOEnZb"><div class="h5"><br>
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