[kde-linux] Possibility of problems when copying files over?

[James Richard Tyrer]

Anne Wilson wrote:
> On Thursday 24 January 2008 19:21:47 James Richard Tyrer wrote:
>> The first question is how you made the back up.  If you simply made a
>> copy, you should have used the command:
>>
>> 	cp -a
>>
>> both to save and to restore.  If you didn't, you may have screwed up
>> file permissions.
>>
> I simply copied all the relevant folders onto a removable drive.  I have kept 
> my uid and gid, so didn't expect any problem.

It is making a backup copy without using the "-a" option that can cause 
problems.  That is if you "simply copy" permissions *will* probably be 
changed.
> 
>> Unless your system administrator wants things otherwise try this:
>>
> I *am* the administrator :-) 
> 
>> Open a Konsole and:
>>
>> 	cd $HOME
>> 	su
>> 	<enter password>
>> 	chown -R <user>:<group> *
>>
>> where 'user' and 'group' would normally be your user account name.
>>
>> This will set the ownership of all files to the correct ownership.
>>
> Despite expecting no problems when the uid and gid were the same, I did this 
> as soon as I began to see any problems.  Whatever it is, it's not that.  The 
> problems remain.
> 
> Thanks for the suggestion, though.

OK, you have the ownership correct.  The next most likely thing is that 
the contents of:

	$HOME/.kde/share/apps
	$HOME/.kde/share/config

Must have modification privileges for the user.  That is, those 
directories and all subdirectories must be 7xx, and all files must be 6xx.

Then there are:

	$HOME/.kde/cache-localhost
	$HOME/.kde/socket-localhost
	$HOME/.kde/tmp-localhost

You should not back up these links.  So, logout of KDE and X.  From a 
text console as root, delete these links.  Also delete:

	/var/tmp/kdecache-<user>
	/tmp/kde-<user>
	/tmp/ksocket-<user>

{These are the standard locations.  Your distro might be different, but, 
IAC, these are the directories that the above three links point to.

Now restart KDE.

-- 
JRT