Re: Packagers: What should we recommend about KDE 2 -> 3 upgrades?
On Thu, Jan 08, 2004 at 12:46:35PM +0100, Hendrik Sattler wrote:
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> Am Donnerstag, 8. Januar 2004 01:35 schrieb Ross Boylan:
> > My guess is the safest route would be to compile KDE 3 to use a
> > different directory, such as ~/.kde3. Possibly there could be some
> > conversion scripts available. Certainly there will then be "I lost my
> > settings" complaints otherwise (but see below: KDE may already do the
> > conversion).
>
> That makes a dead hidden directory in user's home and needs completely new
> settings. Very bad e.g. for KMail.
Agreed. Even worse if KMail stores its data under .kde (I don't know
if it does).
>
> > Alternately, it might be possible to deal with this entirely at
> > install time, or via some script magic that affects each user on their
> > first start of the new package (again, maybe KDE does this already).
>
> Package installation is not allowed to change anything in the user's
> home.
A script that ran when the user started KDE would not, I think, run
afoul of the directive that packages shouldn't mess with home
directories.
> If KDE's apps cannot handle it why being thinking about a monster script?
As I said, there are indications that KDE actually does do this
(migrate the .kde settings). The reason to be thinking of it is that
it's very undesirable to leave users (at least some portion of those
who upgrade major versions) with something that doesn't work in whole
or in part.
>
> > The least attractive alternative, still better than nothing, is a
> > warning in the appropriate packages, during installs, and somewhere in
> > a README.
>
> That's what READE.Debian is for (Debconf should not be used for that).
It may be the case that everything just works. But if it doesn't, I
disagree that a README.Debian note is an adequate way to deal with the
problem. Even a NEWS item (not sure how it works under the covers) is
not much warning, since I don't think there's any assurance that
upgraders will use a tool that presents them with NEWS.
Perhaps the way the postgres package dealt with a major incompatible
version upgrade would be a clue (maybe xfree as well), but that's a
different situation. The upgrade doesn't work at all til you do a
conversion. *If* there is a problem with KDE it's likely more subtle.
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