Any thoughts welcome! New/fresh install

Hi guys, I have decided that my current 11.4 install is borked, and that I am going to start afresh. 12.1 12.2 or maybe Tumbleweed. My current install has various problems, most notably Nepomuk* and his band of satanic brethren **(see my posts on the subject, going back years!) I note and approve of a post in the FAQ/Sticky section which advises (paraphrased)

Do not expect TW to cure problems you already have
This is why I have elected to fresh install. I propose to back-up /home/stephen, but then take all of /home/stephen/.xxxxxx and move them to /home/stephen/back or somewhere the new install won’t see them, and then add them back in one by one, discarding any app data I no longer want or need. Is this going to be a working policy? I don’t really NEED to keep much, but obviously the usual stuff, ie kmail and all mail, address book, firefox and Google Chrome bookmarks and passwords. a fresh start with KDE will be no bad thing. Any thoughts or advice is very welcome, including best way to back-up /home. I have a few bash aliases, which would be nice to keep, but IIRC they can be in various locations, not just /home/x. If someone could do a quick ‘flow chart’ sort of thing I would be grateful!
If I install 12.2 beta 1, could I then convert to Tumbleweed? Or as 12.2 is brand new next month would I be best to just 12.2 and use it till near it’s EOL (18 months?)

  • My new avatar?

http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p145/wakou/nepo-1.png
** dmesg | grep virtuoso 165.967912] virtuoso-t[4893]: segfault at ffffffffffffffff ip 00000000007bd8b4 sp 00007fffde835650 error 6 in virtuoso-t[400000+913000]

On 2012-06-14 14:46, wakou wrote:
> If I install 12.2 beta 1, could I then convert to Tumbleweed?

No, for TW use the approved route, ie, install first 12.1.
And don’t install Beta if you want to be productive, factory is very broken
now. Release of 12.2 will be delayed till mid September.


Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4 x86_64 “Celadon” at Telcontar)

When I migrate, I first archive all non-hidden folders that I want to keep
(after sorting and cleaning up a bit).

Then some hidden folders I want to keep. I don’t know where the one for
kmail is as I don’t use it, but if it’s like thunderbird, archive it and
dump it in the same location on the new install, unless there is an
import-export utility.

As for Firefox, you can export bookmarks and passwords (for the latter
using an add-on). I don’t recommend bringing with you the entire
~/.mozilla folder, unless you want to import significant buildup. Not
too familiar with managing Google Chrome, but isn’t there a service to
“sign in Chrome” to have universal settings, irrespective of the
computer you’re on?

You want to keep your bash aliases? Add to your backup ~/.bashrc and (if
needed) ~/.profile, and any other relevant scripts.

And finish this with chown on your “restored” home folder, to make sure
you’re the owner of these files (depending on how you move them there):
chown -hR username ~username/

Thank-you Robin, I did not know that 12.2 was having a difficult birth! I will probably go for 12.1 then.

Thanks, p-barill the advice is very welcome.

So I too reached a point where my openSUSE 11.4 had a problem and decided it was time to switch to openSUSE 12.1 and sounds like you have reached that point as well. You don’t really need to follow Tumbleweed unless you want to as you can always get the latest kernel and the latest desktop if you want them. I suggest a clean install, using a custom partition where you reuse your old root / and /home (and swap), but you only format the / partition and only mount /home. You must reinstall all of your applications to be used, but all of your old settings will be reused. I did this and it worked just fine for me though a back up important data is always a good idea to do. If you have any more questions please let us know what they are.

Thank You,

I have an extra 20 gig partition. What I do with a new install is put the new version there and do not define a /home partition in the installer so home goes on the root partition. Once I’m happy that it is stable I go in to terminal mode as root rename the /home and use yast to mount my old home partition as home. reboot and hope my KDE configs are ok with the new KDE then remove the renamed /home on root.

once I’m happy I then will use the old 20 gig for the next version or use it in emergencies until the next OS rolls out.

Thanks James, coming to this forum is like coming home, with the same kindly folks ready to offer help etc…
I do not want to re-introduce whatever it is that has stopped nepomuk and its henchmen from ever working, this is why I plan to keep the /home/stephen/.xxxx section away from the new install. AFAICS the only stuff still around from all those years ago (11.1?) MUST be in there…
If when I get applications from outwith the core install, I can drop the .xxxx files on to the new /home/stephen directory if I need any old custom settings (I guess?)

If you feel it is the “old” you with a problem. Create a new user and log in as them and see what happens. If the problem is still there, then reusing your old self with a new install will not cause the problem to occur again. If the problem is fixed you know it is a self created config that is the problem.

Thank You,

On 06/14/2012 08:46 PM, wakou wrote:
>

> I do not want to re-introduce whatever it is that has stopped nepomuk
> and its henchmen from ever working, this is why I plan to keep the
> /home/stephen/.xxxx section away from the new install. AFAICS the only
> stuff still around from all those years ago (11.1?) MUST be in there…
> If when I get applications from outwith the core install, I can drop
> the .xxxx files on to the new /home/stephen directory if I need any old
> custom settings (I guess?)

You mean you’ve used this ~/ since 11.1? Wow. I recall when I did my
first move to a new version (11.1 to 11.4). Try to keep a copy of your
whole /home or don’t flush the old system too fast if you can, because
as I moved, it did not take long that I had moments of “Now where is
that? Oh I forgot that too…”

Creating a new user account might solve quite a few things too. I
suspect that some updates are truly effective on fresh accounts, thus
not perfectly “backward compatible”.

Yes, James but if the problem is (as I suspect) within the unholy mess of Akonadi/soprano/Nepomuk/redwood/ etc etc, I am no further forward.

On 2012-06-15 04:58, p_barill wrote:
> You mean you’ve used this ~/ since 11.1? Wow.

I have mine since 6.2…


Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4 x86_64 “Celadon” at Telcontar)

On 06/14/2012 11:08 PM, Carlos E. R. wrote:
> On 2012-06-15 04:58, p_barill wrote:
>> You mean you’ve used this ~/ since 11.1? Wow.
>
> I have mine since 6.2…
>

I don’t doubt that it can stand much.
Do you still have KDE 2 or gnome 1 stuff in there?

Being on an SSD, I have no choice but to keep it lean.
And I’m also a bit gung ho on getting rid of buildup (old habit from
years of Windows).


P.B. Lecavalier

On 2012-06-15 06:19, p_barill wrote:
> On 06/14/2012 11:08 PM, Carlos E. R. wrote:
>> On 2012-06-15 04:58, p_barill wrote:
>>> You mean you’ve used this ~/ since 11.1? Wow.
>>
>> I have mine since 6.2…
>>
>
> I don’t doubt that it can stand much.
> Do you still have KDE 2 or gnome 1 stuff in there?

Sorting by date, I see files dated 1970, but that is an error. Then there
are some dated 1989, but they are downloaded files (ancienddos package, I
think). Then I see some zip archives dated 1994, but I did not have Linux
then, so they are transfers from my previous Dos system. Some translations
(.po) from 1997 but i doubt they are mine, I started with Linux in 1998. I
see a cv.doc in OO directory dated 1999, that must be the older data file I
have (or found today) I made with Linux. Staroffice surely. Huh, no, it is
a microsof office doc, I just looked inside. Ah, but I see a cv11.rtf dated
june 2000 which I’m indeed sure I made in Linux.

The oldest .dot file is an “.gnu-emacs” file dated may 2006 (and many more
from that year), and the older configuration directory is .xemacs/ dated
oct 2005. There is a “/.gnome” dated Dec 15 2007, and .kde dated Oct 16 2010.

It is not the same computer, of course, I have migrated thrice, and changed
hard disk several times, of course. In those migrations surely I dispossed
of many configuration files.

But in the /etc folder there are directories dated Jul 2006 (/WindowMaker)
and a file is from 1995 (ttytype) and the next Sept 2005 (ksysguardd3rc).

:slight_smile:

And it works :slight_smile:

> Being on an SSD, I have no choice but to keep it lean.

Of course.


Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4 x86_64 “Celadon” at Telcontar)