Re: Updating from Debian 9.13 to 12.7
On Sun, 13 Oct 2024 06:11:17 -0500
Richard Owlett <rowlett@access.net> wrote:
> I want to reproduce the visual environment I've developed over the
> years.
>
In other words, you face the same choice that we all do when it's time
to leave an old faithful installation behind: upgrade or clean install.
While most sets of configurations for most system or application
software are generally forward-compatible most of the time, this isn't
something that can be guaranteed.
You could backup the configuration directories both system-wide and
personal, and then just dump them into place in the new Debian. Quite a
lot of things will work, but quite a lot won't, and they will be a
devil to fix.
What you need is what Microsoft provided during the many years when
Windows was not version-upgradable, a migration tool. But MS could do
this because unmodified Windows installations were pretty much
identical, so it was practical to build a tool to do the whole thing.
Obviously, any used-installed applications were the responsibility of
the user to reinstall and customise.
Linux is not monolithic, and any migration tool would be for one
application, all applications would need their own migration tool. I
have never looked into such things, but if I had to guess, I'd say
there are not many such tools in existence. Since Debian makes its own
configurations to many applications and system software, particularly
in terms of file location, I'd also guess that many such tools would not
apply to Debian installations very well.
So I've always upgraded servers where possible (e.g. not from 32 to 64
bits) and I've installed workstations clean. It's a pain, but I really
don't think there are many shortcuts. You are obviously looking for
configuration files which could just be moved from one Debian version to
another without problems, maybe adding a few tweaks for new functions,
or at least have easily-extractable details such as icon locations. I
very much suspect that if this were the case, people would have built
migration scripts and publicised them. If the Mate forums, of which I'm
sure at least one must exist, doesn't know about anything like this,
there probably isn't one.
I suggest you need to either grit your teeth and manually tweak a clean
installation, or else also grit your teeth, do a full backup, make a
clean installation as a fallback and then upgrade your existing
installation. Going three versions is going to be slow and painful, but
it may be less trouble than the full manual alternative.
--
Joe
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