Uploads to Squeeze and the $KDEHOME dilemma (was: Uploads to lenny and the $KDEHOME dilemma)

[Scott Kitterman]

On Tue, 3 Feb 2009 22:56:27 +0100 Armin Berres <armin at space-based.de> wrote:
>I meant Squeeze and not Lenny for sure.
>
>On Tuesday 03 February 2009 22:53:42 Armin Berres wrote:
>> Hi all!
>>
>> As you all know Lenny is near, which also means that our 4.2 packages 
will
>> enter Unstable in the very near future. Until today, we still have not
>> decided how to handle KDEHOME.
>> The current situation is, that KDE 3 applications use ~/.kde and KDE 4
>> applications use ~/.kde4. The problem with this approach is, that no
>> data/settings are automatically converted to be used by KDE 4.
>>
>> The question is now: should we
>> a) continue to use ~/.kde4 for KDE 4 applications
>> b) use ~/.kde for KDE 4 applications.
>>
>> The problem with a) is, that as mentioned no data is is moved to KDE 4. 
The
>> problem with b) is, that we don't know for sure, if all upgrade scripts
>> work and users don't loose critical data. Apart from that users already
>> using KDE 4 won't find their settings copied.
>> (Add here more pros and cons for either option.)
>>
>> To overcome this, we had the following idea in IRC: Provide a little Qt
>> application which starts at the first KDE 4 start and allows the users to
>> copy their KDEHOMEs around.
>> In case we would use ~/.kde for KDE 4 the script could offer to create a
>> backup in ~/.kde3 so lost data can be reverted if anything goes wrong.
>> If we continue to use ~/.kde4 the application could offer to copy ~/.kde 
to
>> ~/.kde4.
>> Non-KDE users are a bit lost here, we could document what to copy where.
>>
>> So, which options do you see? What would you prefer?
>> Don't forget that we have to decide/code all this before we upload 
kde4libs
>> to unstable.
>>

In the long run KDE is KDE4. I'd recommend KDE4 in .kde and a backup in 
.kde3.  Do it the other way and eventually it'll be .kde4, no .kde, and 
people finding it odd.

In Kubuntu we just migrated people in .kde without the backup tool and I 
would describe it as mostly OK.

Scott K