[kdepim-users] how do i...

[salamandir at hybridelephant.com]

On 2015-10-01 01:53, René J.V. Bertin wrote:
> That should contain everything. However:
> 
> - To be certain it's a really self-contained and valid backup, you
> should either make it while you're very sure nothing is open (like
> dbase files), or you should make the backup while logged in as a
> different user, or booted off an alternative boot disk.
> One way to be reasonably sure that no processes are running that might
> have files open that should only be backed up when they're not in use,
> is to restart and then log in to a virtual console. You can probably
> do that via your regular login manager, or else hit Ctrl-Alt-F1 and
> log in to that console. Or you connect over ssh. You'll get a
> bare-bones shell, and you'll be able to make a backup of your entire
> home directory the old-fashioned way.

this is definitely good information, but it is coming to me a little 
late.

the old machine, from which i made the backup, is no longer functional. 
it was experiencing hard disk problems, reflected by SMART, and i made 
the backup before i shut it down for the last time.

i'm /reasonably/ sure nothing else was running, because, basically, i 
booted the machine for the last time and immediately ran the backup 
without starting anything. i can't be 100% positive that things like 
akonadi were NOT running, but i didn't start anything.

> - You should restore your backup in the same way. Specifically, you're
> almost certainly bound to get bad results if you restore KMail's files
> when new copies of those files already exist and are open. That means
> that not only should you not be running KMail during the restore,
> akonadi shouldn't be running either (and that one is probably started
> automatically even with a new, default login environment). The same
> goes for plenty of other files that store your desktop settings.

this is also very good information, but... i did that already, and it 
didn't work... it was my impression that akonadi didn't start until you 
started something else that used it, and i deliberately /did't/ start 
kontact until /after/ i had restored the backup.

is this something that, theoretically, i can try more than once?

> - Your new machine should have a compatible Linux version installed.

it does. i am running kubuntu 14.04 on both machines.

> In this case that means one that has KMail (and the other KDE PIM
> stuff) that can read your backed up files, but also that expects them
> in the same location. I'm not sure that'll be the case when you
> migrate from a KDE4 to a fully KF5 based desktop.

i am running kubuntu 14.04 on both machines... is there any reason 
things should /not/ work, because that is what seems to have happened.

> About this: I think I managed to import my KDE4 desktop settings (from
> Kubuntu 14.04) into a test VM running Kubuntu 15.04 but it's a bit
> tricky. From what I understand, that migration is done only once, so
> it means you have to login to a console (or over ssh), *remove* the
> appropriate hidden directories, and then put your backup in place. At
> the next login, something will detect that the new versions don't
> exist, and perform whatever import/migration the KDE developers have
> decided to give us.

i am not moving to a more recent version of the system until the next 
LTS version is released.

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