Re: [Evolution] Thank-you al for Upgrade without losing mail: is there a HOWTO?

[meldav <melissad speakeasy net>]

Thank-you Guenther, Lee, Mindy.

My crack at a HOWTO for a "New Installation" or new partitioning:

Here is what I did, and maybe this is simple enough for other
lightweights like me:

1.  Added a disk and created a new partition /export. 

2.  Formatted that partition with ext3, since have never had any
difficulty with mounting ext3 on a new install, and have had "cannot
mount" in reiserfs when SuSE changed versions.

3. Set permissions for me.

4. Created a folder (distro_version_Home).

5. Copied into this folder with the -P switch:  .gconf, .evolution,
Documents, other folders and files I wanted to keep in the new install.

6. Executed the new installation with new partitioning.

7. Performed the first, very long, On-Line Update.

8. Using the graphical file manager, copied .evolution
and .gconf/app/evolution from /export/(%distro%/%version% to /home/%
username%/.evolution and from /export/(%distro%/%version% to /home/%
username%/.gconf/app

Everything came over intact:  mail, contacts, calendar.

Thank-you, eeryone



On Thu, 2006-01-12 at 00:21 +0100, guenther wrote:
> > > > It should Just Work.  Make sure to back up your .evolution directory
> > > > first.
> > >
> > > Note: This is *not* sufficient, as has been posted here many times.
> > > You'll need at least these dirs:
> > >
> > > ~/.evolution/
> > > ~/.gconf/apps/evolution/
> >
> > But the .gconf directory only stores preferences that can easily be
> > restored.  All of the data that the OP wants to preserve (inbox, mail
> > folders, contacts) is in .evolution.
>
> No, the settings in GConf are not necessarily restored (as in "manually
> set up again") easily. Please have a close look at what settings really
> are stored in there [1]. There are a few settings that potentially are
> hard to recreate without internal knowledge.
>
>
> > Besides this should just work, right?  It would be a grave bug if an
> > upgrade destroyed any of this data.
>
> IF you happen to use the same $HOME, or at least restore the mentioned
> dirs from a backup *before* starting to use Evo -- Yes, upgrading just
> will work. Unfortunately most people seem to not use a dedicated
> partition for /home and fail to restore their $HOME *before* running
> every single app on the new distro... (when installing fresh)
>
> Hope the above is sufficiently detailed for Melissa to upgrade her
> distro smoothly. I'm tired and have been abused as a help line half the
> day.
>
> FWIW: If Melissa is going to *upgrade* the distro as she wrote
> initially, she won't overwrite her $HOME in either case. An *upgrade* is
> not the same as a *fresh* install... :)
>
> ...guenther
>
>
> [1] 'gconf-editor' is your friend.