[kde-linux] upgrading to KDE 4.2.4

[Duncan]

Pablo Sanchez posted on Thu, 03 Dec 2009 21:26:57 -0500 as excerpted:

> On Thursday 03 December 2009 at 8:43 pm, Louis Hinman penned about
> "[kde-linux] upgrading to KDE 4.2.4"
> 
>> ... how do I backup the data and setttings in KMail, KOrganizer, and
>> Konqueror and migrate it all to 4.2.4?
> 
> Hi Lou,
> 
> I believe all you'll need to do is rename `~/.kde' to be `~/.kde4'  Or
> if you have spare disk space, you can be super careful and `cp -rad
> ~/.kde ~/.kde4'
> 
> You'll want to do either when you're not logged in as yourself.  You
> might want to boot up at level three - pass `3' to `grub'
> 
> Please let others respond in case I'm wrong though.  :)

That sounds about right, in general, tho whether the user config dir is 
~/.kde or ~/.kde4 or perhaps ~/.kde4.2, or something else, varies per 
distribution.

What I'd do is move that config dir to something else, say using my 
initials (so .kde.jed, here), so I know it's not going to be used for 
anything else, then run kde4 for the first time.  That should give you a 
nice clean default kde4 to look at, at least long enough that you can say 
you did.  Then quit kde4, and see what directory it created for its 
config.  

Then if you want, delete it, and copy your backed up config over top.  
Whether you start from default and reconfigure everything, importing data 
like your mail, or copy over your backed up config over top, is up to 
you.  Enough stuff has changed that you'll be redoing a lot of your old 
config anyway, so it's a good time to get rid of all that old cruft if 
you want to, and generally, people report fewer problems doing that, but 
OTOH, if you're a heavy customizer, starting from a kde3 config and 
letting it convert what it can automatically, even at the expense of a 
some cruft and perhaps having to troubleshoot a few bugs, can be very 
tempting indeed.

FWIW, I used a copy of the kde3 config, here, but if I had it to do over 
again, I'd start clean, because as I said, enough is new and different 
you'll be reconfiguring a lot anyway, and I ended up going thru after a 
few months and deleting a bunch of files that were obviously not being 
used any more, so I think I would have been better off starting clean.

Meanwhile, if you've not tried kde4 yet and thus don't know what to 
expect, as it sounds like you might be doing, I'd strongly urge you to 
see about getting a 4.3.x version to start, as 4.2.4 was where I started, 
and I had a **VERY** tough time.  There's still a lot broken in 4.2.  4.3 
isn't perfect yet, as one that often runs betas and even straight 
development sources, I'd say 4.2 is late alpha or very early beta, and 
4.3 is late beta, but 4.3 is **DEFINITELY** worth a bit of extra trouble 
finding packages for, as I really hate to see anyone needlessly going 
thru all the pain I did trying to upgrade, when 4.3 has fixed a decent 
amount of it.

Alternatively, you may wish to wait for 4.4, scheduled for February.  
Honestly, despite what the kde folks say, and while every version is a 
great improvement from the last, 4.3 /is/ IMO late beta quality.  Based 
on what I've read about 4.4 AND my observations from 4.0 on (I tried to 
run 4.0, 4.1, and early 4.2, but they were simply too broken still), 4.4 
should be decent release candidate quality, what many would release as 
their .0 release.  I expect that's the first one I'll honestly be able to 
recommend, tho even then, a bit cautiously.  Given the trends, 4.5, set 
for August 2010, should be the first version I'll be able to recommend 
for normal users without any reservations.

But I'd for sure recommend AGAINST bothering with 4.2.  There's just way 
too many things broken there, that are already fixed in the 4.3 series.  
Try 4.3 if you like slightly unstable beta quality, or go for 4.4 when it 
comes out, but please, don't even bother with 4.2.  It's not worth it, 
especially now when many of its problems are long ago fixed, in the 4.3 
series.

That's as honest as it gets. =:^)

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman