[digiKam-users] Migrating from Digikam 4 to 6

[Gilles Caulier]

Le sam. 16 janv. 2021 à 14:25, J D <angrdtsk at gmail.com> a écrit :
>
> Hi, and thanks for quick reply,
>
> I got Digikam 6.4 along with a Linux distro, so updating it may not be that simple.

We provide an universal Linux AppImage bundle. There is nothing to
install, it does not install anything. AppImage is just a simple
executable which uncompresses the whole dependencies in a virtual disk
in memory and runs the application using chroot.

It's simple to use.

Just to be sure, backup all your database files previously, in case of...

>
> Do I have any options in addition to using the migration tool?

No, because we have fixed more than 1300 bugs since the 6.x release,
so it will be complicated to resume all problems from previous
releases.

>
> What would be the preferred (hopefully future-proof) solution for this case?
>

This kind of huge migration must be performed carefully. This is my
recommandations:

1/ Backup databases in all cases.
2/ Change Setup/metadata/xmp sidecar option and create a new XMP
sidecar file for all images. Use Maintenance tool.
3/ Stop digiKam and remove your previous database.
4/ start the new 7.2.0 appimage. It will ask to recreate the database
from scratch scanning collection (especially XMP sidecar).
5/ Let's start the scan and take a coffee.

Alternative, more faster of course :

1/ Backup databases in all cases.
2/ run migration database tool
3/ setup original DB and target DB.
4/ process migration and take a coffee.

I always processed the first solution with my huge familly collection
(250Mb on SSD with sqlite).

Best

Gilles Caulier