Upgrade or full re-install? advice needed!

[henge]

So, if i upgrade to Quantal it will be the fourth upgrade since the original installation, as opposed to a full clean install...
Question is, do i need to go through the hassle of a clean install, or can i just upgrade again and risk a laggy/slow system?

What are other peoples experiences, how long have you gone without a full, clean install?

Cheers!

[james147]

You can try upgrading, you always have the option of a clean install if it is to slow for your liking.

I would recomend at least starting with a clean kde profile after doing the upgrade as that might help with some weird issues you can get. (mv ~/.kde ~/kdebackup)

[henge]

You can try upgrading, you always have the option of a clean install if it is to slow for your liking.)

True.

when you say a clean KDE profile, what sort of information/settings does the profile contain?

[pnunn]

I'd go with the backup/clean install option. I tried the upgrade and it ended in tears.

Peter.

[benny_fletch]

when you say a clean KDE profile, what sort of information/settings does the profile contain?

Basically all settings related to KDE and its apps, examples: Background, mouse settings, panel settings, plasma widgets, desktop icons, window themes, custom menu entries, custom toolbars in dolphin (to name one), etc. etc. So you will have to redo all of these, but the advantage is you will not run into random/unexplained crashes in KDE on one else is experiencing.

[james147]

I'd go with the backup/clean install option. I tried the upgrade and it ended in tears.

Peter.

No harm in tring an upgrade first if you are prepared for a reinstall should it go wrong.

[henge]

i think, on balance, i will go for the full, clean install. I've had a number of issues with kontact/akonadi that i just can't get to the bottom of (since a previous upgrade), and at least it will (hopefully) solve that.
Out of interest, what are peoples 'must backup' backups prior to clean install? i usually just copy the home folder, but what about third party repositories etc.? Is there anything else i should consider?
Also, is there anyway to produce (via terminal?) a list of installed programs, preferably those i've installed, rather than those that come packaged.
thanks for all the suggestions and help.

[benny_fletch]

i think, on balance, i will go for the full, clean install. I've had a number of issues with kontact/akonadi that i just can't get to the bottom of (since a previous upgrade), and at least it will (hopefully) solve that.
Out of interest, what are peoples 'must backup' backups prior to clean install? i usually just copy the home folder, but what about third party repositories etc.? Is there anything else i should consider?
Also, is there anyway to produce (via terminal?) a list of installed programs, preferably those i've installed, rather than those that come packaged.
thanks for all the suggestions and help.

Backing up /home is a good start. You can also save /etc/apt/source.list and all the files in the /etc/apt/source.list.d/ folder (this will maintain your repositories and you should be able to simply copy them back post install). If you use other services, like Samba, NFS, or CUPS, you might think about saving their configuration files as well.

As for a list of software installed, you can check this article out (I've never tried it, but it's worth a look):
http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/linux-...n-restore.html

[Snowhog]

You can also save /etc/apt/source.list and all the files in the /etc/apt/source.list.d/ folder (this will maintain your repositories and you should be able to simply copy them back post install).

The release name in each will need to be changed to Quantal.

[benny_fletch]

The release name in each will need to be changed to Quantal.

Good point (and great catch)! Thanks for the correction.

[doctordruidphd]

A little different perspective, and probably irrelevant to the original question, but...

I am absolutely fanatical about NOT doing a "clean" install. I have, over the years, put a great deal of research, time, and effort into getting my system to work the way I want, and having the software I want, much of it locally compiled. Any OS that needs to be rebuilt from scratch at every upgrade, and all of the added software reinstalled is, well, windows, and that's the main reason I bailed from the windows world years ago.

That being said, as others have mentioned, be ready for potholes in the roadway. You probably don't need to zap the whole ~/.kde directory, and if you did that, you would lose all of your settings -- basically nothing to do with kde will work, including menus, etc, until you reinstall everything. But do be ready for the usual problem that plasma widgets more often than not are not compatible (and this goes also for the major kde upgrade that occurs during the middle of the kubuntu upgrade cycle). I routinely delete the ~/.kde/share/config/plasma* files, which winds up killing the panel, widgets, and desktop background, but usually leaves kde bootable.

Also in case of recent releases where lightdm has been substituted for kdm, you will still be using kdm, and will have to install all the lightdm stuff manually. That's fine with me, I don't like lightdm, and have kdm working exactly the way I want it.

You can fix the repository problem with:

cd /etc/apt/sources.list.d
sudo rpl --dry-run "precise" "quantal" *list

run this, check the output, and then run it again with the --dry-run part rubbed out
to do it for real.
You could run the same utility on your /etc/apt/sources.list file:

cd /etc/apt
sudo rpl --dry-run "precise" "quantal" ./sources.list

again checking the output, and then rubbing out the --dry-run part to make it work.

PS I have found lowercase "quantal" works fine, but I suppose "Quantal" is the correct form.

[SteveRiley]

I am absolutely fanatical about NOT doing a "clean" install. I have, over the years, put a great deal of research, time, and effort into getting my system to work the way I want, and having the software I want, much of it locally compiled.

When did you build your system, and how many release upgrades have you been through?

[doctordruidphd]

First was 7.04; actually had to do a reinstall with 8.10 when I switched to 64-bit. THAT was truly miserable.

[Snowhog]

You can fix the repository problem with:

cd /etc/apt/sources.list.d
sudo rpl --dry-run "precise" "quantal" *list

run this, check the output, and then run it again with the --dry-run part rubbed out
to do it for real.
You could run the same utility on your /etc/apt/sources.list file:

cd /etc/apt
sudo rpl --dry-run "precise" "quantal" ./sources.list

again checking the output, and then rubbing out the --dry-run part to make it work.

Note: rpl has to be installed in order for this to work.

Description-en: intelligent recursive search/replace utility
rpl is a text replacement utility. It will replace strings with new strings
in multiple text files. It can work recursively over directories and supports
limiting the search to specific file suffixes.

[SteveRiley]

First was 7.04; actually had to do a reinstall with 8.10 when I switched to 64-bit. THAT was truly miserable.

Wow. Installing 12.10 will be (has been?) your eighth upgrade. Impressive.