Hybrid Neon anyone?

[oldgeek]

Has anyone tried to add Neon repositories to Kubuntu 18.04 in order to get a hybrid Neon based on Kubuntu rather than Ubuntu with the new 18.04 Neon? I did this with Kubuntu 16.04 and got good results. In the end, I had an OS which had the very latest Neon updates (dev edition) as well as the latest Linux kernel updates, yet still ran all the Kubuntu stuff, even Wine-based programs. The only reason I changed to Kubuntu 18.04 was to try the btrfs file system, which I did not have. Kubuntu 18.04 is running fine for me, so I have been reluctant to try this possibly risky move to a new hybrid Neon. Has anyone else tried? Results?

[vinnywright]

As you may remember I also was running a Kubuntu-16.04 with the Neon-/dev/stable repo added , I still am , but I did the 18.04 upgrade on it

Operating System: KDE neon Developer Edition
KDE Plasma Version: 5.14.3
Qt Version: 5.11.2
KDE Frameworks Version: 5.53.0
Kernel Version: 4.15.0-38-generic
OS Type: 64-bit
Processors: 8 × Intel® Core™ i7-4910MQ CPU @ 2.90GHz
Memory: 15.6 GiB of RAM

it's still chugging along

I do not use "wine" so I cant comment on that !

VINNY

[oldgeek]

Do you remember how to add the neon repositories? Now that I have btrfs, I may give it a try again.

[vinnywright]

I just put it in /etc/apt/sources.list .

it being ,

#disabled on upgrade to bionic
deb http://archive.neon.kde.org/stable/ bionic main
# deb-src http://archive.neon.kde.org/stable/ xenial main

but it should be in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/neon.list as far as where it gets put in a Neon install .

the location of mine was the cause of some ,,,,,,,slight trouble during my 16.04 to 18.04 upgrade ,,,,,,it got commented out during the upgrade .

had to do some serious putzing around to get the GUI desktop back ,,,,LOL

VINNY

[oldgeek]

So then I just write in the second line. How do I do that? I guess I use kate, but since I don't do that much, I'd rather be given some steps so I don't mess it up. Also, are there any sources I should remove?

[Snowhog]

Launch Kate and create a new file. Paste this line into that new file:

deb http://archive.neon.kde.org/stable/ bionic main

Save the file as neon.list in /etc/apt/sources.list.d

You will be asked for your password, as you are saving the file to a location owned by root.

[vinnywright]

also ,,,,,since you are using BTRFS , be sure to take a snapshot of the system first so you can go back to this point if trouble ensues .

VINNY

[acheron]

Most likely would be file overwrite and/or package conflicts on upgrade. Some maybe easily solvable, some maybe difficult. Get your apt and dpkg man pages ready...

Neon and Kubuntu share a historical packaging base, and over time many of the same changes have been made the same way (even at the same time by the same people ), but packaging decisions such as moving files from one package to another, or replacing/renaming a package may have been made or merged from debian at different times. So for example the breaks/replaces against package <= xx version that help apt handle such situations without breakage will be different and incompatible between Neon archive and the ones already installed. i.e. the Neon ones are set to upgrade from previous Neon version safely, not the Kubuntu ones.

[Snowhog]

Some just have to have their Kubuneon or would it be Neobuntu?

[SpecialEd]

Some just have to have their Kubuneon or would it be Neobuntu?

Frankenbuntu.

[oldgeek]

Thanks everyone. Still thinking about it, though. Kubuntu 18.04 works without problems, and that may be more influential than the desire to have a more up-to-date Plasma.

[vinnywright]

Most likely would be file overwrite and/or package conflicts on upgrade. Some maybe easily solvable, some maybe difficult. Get your apt and dpkg man pages ready...

Neon and Kubuntu share a historical packaging base, and over time many of the same changes have been made the same way (even at the same time by the same people ), but packaging decisions such as moving files from one package to another, or replacing/renaming a package may have been made or merged from debian at different times. So for example the breaks/replaces against package <= xx version that help apt handle such situations without breakage will be different and incompatible between Neon archive and the ones already installed. i.e. the Neon ones are set to upgrade from previous Neon version safely, not the Kubuntu ones.

I think if my neon.list had been in the place that neon was looking for it it would not have been disabled on the upgrade I made , I did see that it had been disabled at one stage of the upgrade and that a LOT was going to be removed including neon-desktop , but let it happen any way to test my repair foo ,,,,

@oldgeek is not trying to do a 16.04 to 18.04 upgrade , just add the neon repo to 18.04 so should be good , but since I have a Kubuntu-18.04 in a BTRFS file system , I will some time this weekend take a snapshot of it's current state (rather stock) and try it myself then just put back the stock Kubuntu and report the result .

VINNY

[oldgeek]

Well, thanks for that. I have snapshots, but have never yet had to use them to revert to a previous state. Still a rank amateur at btrfs affairs.

[vinnywright]

well hears the report ,,,in short , it was as @acheron described ,,,,a mess

started off with

492 upgraded, 68 newly installed, 22 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 294 MB of archives.
After this operation, 7,826 kB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n]

to which of cource I said Y .

that's when the fun started , dpkg errors trying to over write and cant ,lots of "sudo apt --fix-broken install" and "sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade" and "sudo dpkg -i --force-all /var/cache/apt/archives/package-name" .

until it finally settled down with apt-get dist-upgrade reporting nothing to do , then a "install neon-desktop" to finish it all off and it seems good BUT it was very problematic to say the least .

Operating System: KDE neon Developer Edition
KDE Plasma Version: 5.14.3
Qt Version: 5.11.2
KDE Frameworks Version: 5.53.0
Kernel Version: 4.18.0-11-generic
OS Type: 64-bit
Processors: 8 × Intel® Core™ i7-4910MQ CPU @ 2.90GHz
Memory: 15.6 GiB of RAM

I think all in all it would just be easier to do a separate install of a straight Neon-dev/stable and to that end I will now restore the snapshot to get my stock Kubuntu-18.04 back .

that is ,,,,I made the snapshot "@-snap2" and "@home-snap2" right before the adventure , I will now boot to a different system and rename @ to @old , @home to @home-old and then @-snap2 to @ and @home-snap2 to @home then reboot back to my Kubuntu-18.04 , if all is well then I will delete the @old and @home-old.

all for now

VINNY

[oldgeek]

Hmmm--thanks for the fruits of your experience. It doesn't seem to be worth all the hassle. I think I'll stick with what I have. Sorry to take up your time.