Uploads to Squeeze and the $KDEHOME dilemma

[Ana Guerrero]

On Tue, Feb 03, 2009 at 10:53:42PM +0100, Armin Berres wrote:
> 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.
>

I would go for a) continue to use ~/.kde4 for KDE 4 applications. This option
keeps .kde for KDE3 apps data that a lot of people will have to use for some
time and for backuping in case users want to go back to KDE 3. Some people
will say here downgrades are not supported, but we all know the change from
KDE 3 to 4 won't please to everybody and it is easy keep on the safe side and do
not mess with people's data. I do not fully see KDE 4 as major upgrade of KDE
3, it is different in a lot of ways...
What could be done here is when users log first time in KDE 4 get some dialog
telling then "hey welcome to KDE 4, your settings are not migrated because X
and Y, you have this migration guide|program from migrating then"...

The option of start a migrating program instead of this warning dialog, also
works for me, but: i do not volunteer for doing or testing it and i still think 
even in this case, it is better keeping .kde4 and not moving to .kde.


Ana