[DESKTOP] D'oh...

[przxqgl]

so, i usually install LTS versions, but i'm a little behind, because the Kontact user list was full of people complaining about how Kontact was broken in the switch from Trusty to Xenial... but now it appears that Bionic is the new LTS.

i've tried upgrading, skipping a version in the past, and got my computer royally screwed in the process.

usually, i'm pretty good about installing the latest LTS, but i also recall getting email from an old, wise linux guru who said that if it's not broken, don't fix it. after having my computer royally screwed for a week or so, the last time i tried skipping an LTS version, i want to be especially cautious about upgrading, especially now that i've potentially got two LTS versions to upgrade.

any advice would be welcome.

[claydoh]

Normally I have no qualms recommending doing a simple upgrade but in this case, performing a double upgrade is not worth the risk. You can't skip, I believe that you have to go first to 16.04 then to 18.04.

Your only safe recourse is to start from scratch. You'll lose your desktop settings anyway. You obviously should back up your data.

But my first suggestion is to play with a live usb stick to give 18.04 a test run first. It will look a little different but 95% of the things are in the same places as configured in the same manners as they are in 14.04.

Go to etcher.io and download their self contained USB creator tool and use that to make the bootable 18.04 stick. The usb-creator tool you already have does not work well anymore.



I don't know who thought that Kontact in 16.04 was worse than 14.04, they must have been smoking something funny imo
Seriously.

Sent from my LG-H931 using Tapatalk

[przxqgl]

i don't have a problem making the upgrade by making it in increments, as long as i have the correct repository for making the upgrade from 14 to 16, before going to 18... unfortunately, i don't think muon or synaptic package manager have the middle repository by default, and i don't know how to add it.

and i thought i actually had the email from the old, wise linux guru... it was part of a discussion in the KDE-PIM mailing list, and it was at least 6 to 8 years ago, because it was before trusty... but i can't seem to find it now. oh well.

[jlittle]

Short reply, "backup your data, make records of your set up, do a clean install". Ramblings follow...

You don't directly say which release you are using, but since you talk about skipping an LTS release, I think it is Trusty.

I've seen recommendations to avoid doing a release upgrade from Kubuntu Trusty to Xenial (14.04 to 16.04). The transition from KDE4 to plasma seems difficult. Also, in my own experience, I used to support Lubuntu on a few old desktops and the release upgrade to Xenial made them very slow.

So, IMO a clean install of Bionic might involve juggling data backups and lots of reinstalling and reconfiguring, but much less likely to have problems. I'd expect it to be much faster, too.

Smaller SSDs, say 250 GB or less, have got cheaper recently; installing Bionic onto one might be a good idea, though problematic for a laptop.

Regards, John Little

[claydoh]

Doing two upgrades is two chances for a mess, and more than twice as long as it would to install from scratch, and probably longer than it would take to install and restore and/or reconfigure the new system.


Kontact/KDEPIM did have some troubles back in 2012, I helped a bit testing and assisting in troubleshooting the move form KDE3 version to KDE4. It is muuuuuucchhhhh muuuuuuch more better-er now. I stopped using Kontact mainly out of laziness (new laptop) and discovered that a web based interface works rather well for all my needs, even with 4 or 5 accounts. I tested Kmail the other day, and found initial account setup, using one of my non-Gmail accounts, didn't require me to use manual setup, as it always had before, and adding a Gmail account took only a few seconds more.
I may consider going back to it, now that I have fired it up, lol!


My old seldom used laptop still has it, I updated it, things work just fine.

[przxqgl]

Short reply, "backup your data, make records of your set up, do a clean install". Ramblings follow...

i was kind of hoping to avoid doing that, if possible, because i don't exactly know how much data i have, don't know how much of it i need to back up, and, to be honest, i have never had a backup restore go the way it was supposed to, and i'm rather familiar with the whole concept of losing ALL my data and having to start over again from scratch...

and i'd REALLY like to avoid that, if at all possible... which is a big reason why i didn't upgrade to xenial, given the warnings i read about it.

You don't directly say which release you are using, but since you talk about skipping an LTS release, I think it is Trusty.

i thought my comment about how Kontact was broken in the switch from Trusty to Xenial was an indication, but yes, currently trusty.

I've seen recommendations to avoid doing a release upgrade from Kubuntu Trusty to Xenial (14.04 to 16.04). The transition from KDE4 to plasma seems difficult.

i have also seen warnings about this, which is one of the reasons i held back.

So, IMO a clean install of Bionic might involve juggling data backups and lots of reinstalling and reconfiguring, but much less likely to have problems. I'd expect it to be much faster, too.

i use Back In Time on an external USB hard disk, but i've never restored from it. if, as i gather, a clean install of bionic is preferable, i've got that, but if it doesn't restore, as has been my experience in the past, it doesn't help that much.

Smaller SSDs, say 250 GB or less, have got cheaper recently; installing Bionic onto one might be a good idea, though problematic for a laptop.

this is for my desktop, and i've currently got three 2TB external drives: a backup drive for my laptop and my desktop, and third that is a NAS. i have often thought about running the OS from an external drive. maybe this is the time to investigate that more thoroughly...

[przxqgl]

Doing two upgrades is two chances for a mess, and more than twice as long as it would to install from scratch, and probably longer than it would take to install and restore and/or reconfigure the new system.

while i don't disagree with you, if it is possible, it's still on the table, however i'm also seriously considering jlittle's suggestion of buying a small SSD and running bionic from that. it seems like the best of both worlds for the least amount of hassle.

Kontact/KDEPIM did have some troubles back in 2012, I helped a bit testing and assisting in troubleshooting the move form KDE3 version to KDE4. It is muuuuuucchhhhh muuuuuuch more better-er now.

good to know. i rely on kontact in a way that i never relied on Mac Mail or Outlook. it does everything i want it to do, makes accessing everything easy, and, at this point, i've probably got 10 years worth of email that it would be a shame to lose.

I stopped using Kontact mainly out of laziness (new laptop) and discovered that a web based interface works rather well for all my needs, even with 4 or 5 accounts.

i worked as a tester for a major email back-end software company (does Software.com or Openwave ring any bells?), 15 years ago, and i developed an intense dislike of IMAP mail, simply because it lives on someone else's server, and it is always someone else's prerogative whether or not you access that server. with POP mail, it all goes on MY machine, and i can access that when i want to, even if there is a lack of internet connection. using IMAP mail also plays to my paranoia, because mail on someone else's server has the potential of being read by someone else. with POP, you only have to worry about other people. ;-)

[jglen490]

Yeah, it can be complicated jumping two LTS cycles. But I don't think it's necessary to install one LTS and then follow right behind with another LTS install. If you just jump straight to the latest LTS, you could end up with some screwed up configurations, but nothing irrecoverable, in my opinion. So you need to find where all your data is living, and regardless of how you proceed - first backup ALL that data. You might not actually lose data on a well done clean install, but loss could happen, so say it again - BACKUP YOUR DATA. Some of that data could be browser links, it could be music and pictures and docs that are not in /home, it may be unique aliases in you .bashrc. You may have installed applications that are not in the "normal" Kubuntu install. The "normal" Kubuntu may install applications that you don't really want. Figure it out.

I always keep all my "permanent" data in some location under /home (which is always in a partition separate from the root directory) including a /home/multimedia that's on a completely separate physical drive - none of it in some random /data or /opt directory - that way I can make simple routine backups of all that important stuff with one command. Still, I misplaced a few things with a fresh 18.04.

I would just do a clean install of 18.04 after doing a backup. You should be able to only have to format your root partition and just leave the other directories as is, assuming they are separated as different partitions.

[przxqgl]

I always keep all my "permanent" data in some location under /home (which is always in a partition separate from the root directory) including a /home/multimedia that's on a completely separate physical drive - none of it in some random /data or /opt directory - that way I can make simple routine backups of all that important stuff with one command.

i thought about doing that several LTSs ago, but was dissuaded by MANY old, wise linux gurus telling me that creating /home on a separate device was NOT advised, for one reason or another... in fact, i think some of those OWLGs were here, on kubuntu forums...

i would be VERY interested in learning how you did this, because this would solve my problems without my HAVING to go through all of that extra rigamarole.

[claydoh]

i thought about doing that several LTSs ago, but was dissuaded by MANY old, wise linux gurus telling me that creating /home on a separate device was NOT advised, for one reason or another... in fact, i think some of those OWLGs were here, on kubuntu forums....

I want to know who ever said that, and slap them with a wet fish I have been here nearly from day one, and having a separate /home has been a long standing suggested practice in any distro. It is not necessary, but it is useful for tinkerers, and those concerned with preserving data.
However, it is a touch more complicated, as you have to do a custom install setup. Not everyone wants to do that, or does not feel comfortable with that, so I can see it not being suggested in those cases.

[przxqgl]

I want to know who ever said that, and slap them with a wet fish

so do i... as i said, i thought about this several LTSs ago. it would have made my life so much easier, then, and i wouldn't be here, asking the question, now...

I have been here nearly from day one, and having a separate /home has been a long standing suggested practice in any distro. It is not necessary, but it is useful for tinkerers, and those concerned with preserving data.

in other words, people like me.

so, once again, i ask... how is it possible to move the /home directory? IS it possible? would it be easier if i just copied the contents of my /home directory to my NAS, and do a clean install?

unfortunately, i'm going to be busy for the next couple of days, and probably won't see any responses until sunday or monday.

[Rod J]

i ask... how is it possible to move the /home directory? IS it possible? would it be easier if i just copied the contents of my /home directory to my NAS, and do a clean install?

If you boot from a live USB/DVD you could move /home/<yourname> to another partition and then create a symlink back to the original location. To do a link like this in Dolphin just move the folder to the new site first. Then do the same drag back to the original location but this time click on the popup "Link here". Symlinks are very useful for moving stuff around and 'fooling' the system into thinking that the stuff is still where it was before. I have done this for several large games in Steam. I have Steam installed on the SSD system partition but the bulky games are actually on the HDD ... and Steam works just fine this way.

This is the way I have set my system up:

I have the root / system and /home on the same partition on my SSD ... BUT I have Documents, Pictures, Music, Downloads (all the bulky stuff) on my 2Tb HDD. Then I have symlinked the folders back to the SSD partition. The system thinks the folders I've moved are still where they were when I did the install but they're actually on the HDD now. Several people on the forum do it that way too. Best of both worlds IMHO.

The reason I don't put the whole of /home on the HDD is because of speed (SSD) and most of the configuration stuff changes too much between LTS's to make it worthwhile trying to get the settings to work with the new system. I back up the .config folder, etc in my ordinary backups.

[przxqgl]

now that things have calmed down a bit, after spending the past few days moving my mother-in-law into an assisted living facility, i've actually had the time to read your response.

i believe i am one step closer to actually upgrading my system, but in order to do that, i have to back up my mail.

i pretty much don't care about the desktop settings, and so forth, because i change them on a more or less regular basis, as it is, but mail has gotten to be something that i absolutely CAN NOT do without... and i have NEVER had a backup as part of a system upgrade go smoothly. any advice you could offer on how to get my mail backed up successfully would be greatly appreciated. ;-)

i need to get started on this, too, because one of the things i realised, after having not even turned on my computer in a few days, is that the version of amarok that i'm running is hosed, and i'm having to use QMMP to play music.

[GreyGeek]

How you backup your email depends on which protocol you use and which email client you use. I've found that mbox works great. About a year ago I switched to an ISP that uses IMAP and they store all my email on their servers. When I installed Thunderbird and linked to their server my Thunderbird directories and email contents synced up automatically and quickly. KMail requires a secondary app to backup or restore email, and it is touchy to use because Akonadi isn't all that reliable, IMO. That's one reason why, after years of use, I left KMail.

[przxqgl]

How you backup your email depends on which protocol you use and which email client you use. I've found that mbox works great.

i don't remember what kind of mailbox i use, but the way my email works is that it comes from my own shared server, on which i also have several web sites, and various other internet-related gadgetry.

About a year ago I switched to an ISP that uses IMAP and they store all my email on their servers. When I installed Thunderbird and linked to their server my Thunderbird directories and email contents synced up automatically and quickly.

i am paranoid enough that i still use POP3 mail, rather than IMAP, because that way, even if my internet connection goes down, i still have access to the information on my local computer. i have one IMAP account for convenience, but it's not my main account.

KMail requires a secondary app to backup or restore email, and it is touchy to use because Akonadi isn't all that reliable, IMO.

if the KDE-PIM email group is to be believed, they've got a replacement for akonadi that sounds pretty spectacular.

That's one reason why, after years of use, I left KMail.

i still use Kmail, and i really like it... of course i also have about a dozen different email accounts, and i really dread pretty much any drastic change, at this point.