PLEASE HELP!!! FILE STRUCTURE ISSUE!!!

**sosaudio1** · 15-Jul-2008, 17:43

Alright guys I need some bigtime help. I know this has happened to someone but I can't find the fix...

I updated to Suse 11/KDE 4 via "New Installation" now I have two folders in /home...I told it do not mess with the home partition and yet, I have two folders. One is the previous one million time freaking settings and now this new BS folder with all new emptiness in it and guess what the system wants to use???? That's right, the new home dir.

How in the Holy **** do I tell it to get rid of the new home folder and use the old one instead...a RM -R (LOLOLOLOLOL) renders the system unstartable in current form....so again, did a clean install do not mess with the home folder and yes once again we have only two folders in the /home dir.

Please help me fix this shizzodd. I am on the laptop now and this upgrade (new install went well).

Thanks
Rich

**enderandrew** · 15-Jul-2008, 17:52

A new install is what I'd do.

If you're keeping your old /home partition, during the install process you don't format your old /home partition, but you need to tell the installer to mount /home where your old /home partition is, or it creates the new /home folder.

**sosaudio1** · 15-Jul-2008, 18:32

Originally Posted by enderandrew

A new install is what I'd do.

If you're keeping your old /home partition, during the install process you don't format your old /home partition, but you need to tell the installer to mount /home where your old /home partition is, or it creates the new /home folder.

See that is just what I did. I had to keep the /home partition because of all the settings/pics and saved stuff that I need. So...it did indeed keep the /home partition, but, inside home there are now two directories that are there.

For example

/home/old settings
/home/new settings

and KDE is using /home/new settings instead of the other folder.

see??

Everything as far as FSTAB is concerned is great because the partitions are intact, there is just an extra directory where the new install has new settings.

See???

I need KDE to see and use the old settings directory....

A breakdown of the process...

As you know when you are installing a new system, you are asked for a user name...lets call it new settings. When I first installed the system let's say I called it...old settings....so therefore now you see the directory issues.....

How do I tell KDE don't use new settings, use old settings??

Thanks for the quick replies...keep em coming

Rich

**sosaudio1** · 15-Jul-2008, 18:42

What about KDiff? Will that work on the two directories? From there, will KDE be able to use the new merged directory???

**sosaudio1** · 15-Jul-2008, 20:09

Can I just copy the /home/old settings directory over the /home/new settings directory and it work?

**sosaudio1** · 15-Jul-2008, 20:31

or maybe it is as easy as changing the user settings (YaST, Security and Users, User and Group management) change user details to make a change to the directory.....

**sosaudio1** · 16-Jul-2008, 13:32

HELP what is my next step??

**Magic31** · 16-Jul-2008, 13:55

Originally Posted by sosaudio1

Can I just copy the /home/old settings directory over the /home/new settings directory and it work?

I would say check your users home folder setting using YaST > Users and Groups.

What I don't get is what you mean by /home/old & /home/new?
Would you post your fstab as also an ' ls /home -al ' just to be sure we are talking about the same thing.

If the account is using /home/new you can copy the contents of /home/old into it (do this by logging in as root as let root do the copy, then set ownerships and rights if necessary.)

logging in as the affected user should then show the old environment.

Hope that helps,
Wj

**sosaudio1** · 16-Jul-2008, 14:24

Thanks for the quick response!!!! I am currnently copying the old home directory to the new one in root...I will post the fstab in a bit....right now I am on a laptop in another room but essentially the directories for /home (this is as in user home not root home) contain what the OS would see as two users. The exact urls are as follows

/home/rich-and-lori (this is the new one)
/home/Rich-and-Lori (this is the old one)

What KDE did was to install new KDE into the lower case folder asin new install and not upgrade as in use prior settings

Going into YaST and changing users to home to the old home produced great results but now YaST is totally hosed which leads me to the copy...from here, I will then set the users security setup back to the lower case home dir and see if that gets us back.

Better ideas??? Remember I have only copied the old home directory over at this point....IF I should keep the security user settings to the old dir (Rich-and-Lori), what magic do I do to get YaST to work again?

**enderandrew** · 16-Jul-2008, 15:18

Linux is case sensitive.

When you created the user account during the install process you apparently didn't use the same capitalization as when you did your previous Ubuntu install.

As it was stated above, you should be able to go into Yast - Users and Groups, and point your account to the other directory.