I will be migrating from LTS user neon to current user neon on a laptop (Asus Transformer 3 Pro).
Any good alternative to nuke and pave?
I have downloaded the ISO

It might be easier to add the 'user' repo settings and update from there.

url:

http://archive.neon.kde.org/user/

distribution:

xenial

sections:

main

Before trying I would recommend that you do a back-up of your data and.

Just to add to my earlier post I used to use mint kde (which uses the same kde version as you) and update kde by adding the neon repo as above. As it was quite a bit of a jump there were a few conflicts and some notes below might be of help.

$ sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
libpam-kwallet-common : Conflicts: pam-kwallet-init but 4:5.10.5-0neon+16.04+xenial+build38 is to be installed

$ sudo apt purge libpam-kwallet-common

$ sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade
$ sudo apt dist-upgrade

$ sudo apt upgrade

Errors were encountered while processing:
/var/cache/apt/archives/libkf5screen7_4%3a5.10.5-0neon+16.04+xenial+build42_amd64.deb

$ sudo apt purge libkf5screen-bin
$ sudo apt upgrade

$ sudo apt autoremove
$ sudo apt install libpam-kwallet-common
$ sudo apt upgrade

Use the correct usage of apt to properly update an Ubuntu-based system:
sudo apt full-upgrade
instead of
sudo apt upgrade
Some of the conflicts may have been due to using 'upgrade' as this will not install any new packages dependencies that are required, but only upgrade existing ones. if a package requires something new, it cannot be installed if new things can't be included.

gfielding wrote:Just to add to my earlier post I used to use mint kde (which uses the same kde version as you) and update kde by adding the neon repo as above. As it was quite a bit of a jump there were a few conflicts and some notes below might be of help.

$ sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
libpam-kwallet-common : Conflicts: pam-kwallet-init but 4:5.10.5-0neon+16.04+xenial+build38 is to be installed

$ sudo apt purge libpam-kwallet-common

$ sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade
$ sudo apt dist-upgrade

$ sudo apt upgrade

Errors were encountered while processing:
/var/cache/apt/archives/libkf5screen7_4%3a5.10.5-0neon+16.04+xenial+build42_amd64.deb

$ sudo apt purge libkf5screen-bin
$ sudo apt upgrade

$ sudo apt autoremove
$ sudo apt install libpam-kwallet-common
$ sudo apt upgrade

pwrcul wrote:I will be migrating from LTS user neon to current user neon on a laptop (Asus Transformer 3 Pro).
Any good alternative to nuke and pave?
I have downloaded the ISO

The iso won't be useful unless you do wish to start from scratch.

You can simply edit your /etc/apt/sources.list or /etc/apt/sources/list.d/neon.list
and change the neon repo line to replace 'lts' with 'user', then run an apt update and a full-upgrade.
If you do decide to start from scratch, you can partition your drive to give yourself a separate /home, which is useful for future fresh installs as this preserves your settings and data, so you only have to point the installer to the / and the /home, then reinstall any programs you added once you boot back into the fresh install.

Thanks to both of you for your help.
The process went smoothly. I have a Clonezilla backup of the partition.

I've had crashes multiple times since starting up with new Plasma 5.11.3
I eliminated a bunch of FF tabs and need to clean more. FF triggered the first crash.
Kmail actually looks usable now, but it triggered a crash once.
I will get back later about other issues....

I have another older desktop system with Kubuntu 14.04 that is long in the tooth.
It does have a separate /home but I am not sure that will help me since it is so old now.

For now I will focus on the laptop with KDE neon.

Well done.