KDE messed up on update from Hardy to Jaunty

[David McGlone]

On Monday 08 June 2009 05:36:23 pm Lisi Reisz wrote:
> On Monday 08 June 2009 19:18:32 Terrell Prude' Jr. wrote:
> > Lisi Reisz wrote:
> > > On Monday 08 June 2009 14:59:34 Terrell Prude' Jr. wrote:
> > >> Lisi Reisz wrote:
> > >>> Someone whose computer I administer has updated directly from Hardy
> > >>> to Jaunty. He now cannot log-on to KDE.  The process starts and then
> > >>> hangs. Presumably this is to do with the change from 3.5.x to 4.x.x.
> > >>>
> > >>> I would prefer solve this without reinstalling as he has no back-up.
> > >>>
> > >>> All suggestions welcomed!
> > >>
> > >> By "the process", do you mean that the login screen doesn't show up,
> > >> or that he gets the desktop but then it quits, or that he can enter in
> > >> his userID/passwd and then he immediately gets kicked out--what, more
> > >> precisely, are we talking about here?
> > >
> > > The GUI login screen opens, but when the correct password is entered
> > > the system hangs.  From the CLI, after a successful login, I type
> > > startx, enter, and KDE starts to open, but then the system hangs.
> > >
> > > It is definitely KDE, because I have installed xfce4, and there are no
> > > apparent problems.
> > >
> > > There are now problems with sound, so I may reinstall after all, as
> > > Ubuntu, to get pulse-audio instead.  But I shall try to purge phonon
> > > and install pulse-audio before I do anything that drastic.
> >
> > My "upgrade" from Hardy to Intrepid eventually became a reinstall, and
> > personally, I'd recommend as such due to the KDE major revision issue
> > here.  The reinstall was easy for me to do because I always put /home on
> > a separate partition.  The way I partition a disk for a desktop box is
> > (usually) as follows.
> >
> > /boot = 200MB
> > / = 10GB to 20GB, just in case
> > /home = the rest of the disk
> >
> > Makes reinstalls very easy and wipes all that stuff in /var clean every
> > time.  In some cases, I'll make a separate /var and /tmp as well, but
> > the above is really all you need.
>
> Yes, I have a separate disk for my /home (and another for /backup).   Makes
> reinstalls very easy.  But this is not my own box.

here's what I do,

I have a separate partition for /home and / and then I have my "d" on a 
separate partition and on the "d" partition I create the exact same folders 
that are in my /home partition when a fresh install is made on the "d" 
partition, then I delete all those folders in my /home and I symlink all the 
folders on my "d" partition to my /home partition.  If anything goes wrong 
here, the only thing I'm going to lose is my specific desktop settings such as 
wallpaper, shortcuts, and all the small things.

Makes re-installing for me no longer than how fast the installation can go and 
3 minutes to type a couple symlinks.

LINUX ROCKS!! :-)
-- 
Blessings,
David M.
http://www.dmcentral.net