I have opensuse 11.1 and mandriva 2009, both running KDE 4.1.3, sharing home partition for users, installed on separate partitions on the same laptop. Things are fine.

If I update the opensuse partition to KDE 4.2, will it cause problems with the configuration files between 4.2 and 4.1.3 ? Or are they compatible ?

most of them are... kontact will try to use akonadi.. so you will still have to reconfigure something...

I would recommend against it.

It aways drives me crays when I update huge guys.I hope that kubuntu904 will release with kde4.2.

I suggest you to back up your entire .kde4 directory. This upgrade is far away from compatibility, it's more like a fresh install. Almost nothing upgrades... KMail, KOrganizer, Konqueror, etc.
Good luck.

mghohoo wrote:It aways drives me crays when I update huge guys.I hope that kubuntu904 will release with kde4.2.

KDE 4.2 is scheduled for release on 27th Jan. So obviously, Jaunty will ship 4.2 (or maybe newer?)

@OP
I too will not recommend it. Mixing config files of two different versions will spoil your 4.1.x installation.

waldelf wrote:most of them are... kontact will try to use akonadi.. so you will still have to reconfigure something...

Just as an update:
due to unexpected difficulties, e.g. all kinds of internal usage of the traditional APIs in weird ways, the KDE PIM developers decided that it was saver to keep the tested access methods on the application side and only make the data available through Akonadi for applications working directly with it.

Or more precisely this is what the automated approach will do, it is still possible to override this or manually have applications use Akonadi through the compatibility adapters.
Though that should be used with caution.

Cheers,
_

Well, I didn't update to 4.2. I upgraded the mandriva one to 4.1.4. I will wait until 4.2 is released and packages are available for suse AND mandriva.

Perhaps the config files should maintain compatibility - both forward and backward. This can be achieved by modularizing functionality. Versions that do not support certain functions can simply ignore those lines.

Just a thought.

Hi everyone, I upgrade to kde 4.2 last night and at the top of open window the minus and x is missing so i cant resize the window either. I tried pushing f 11 twice and that will not fix it now all windows including firefox is affected. I appreciate all help and thank you in advance.

vmuppalla wrote:Perhaps the config files should maintain compatibility - both forward and backward. This can be achieved by modularizing functionality. Versions that do not support certain functions can simply ignore those lines.

It's usually done that way, however sometimes its just not viable.

For example when functionality moves from an application into a library, config associated with said functionality needs to move as well.
Keeping two storage places sychronized is a lot of work and not totally relyable.

But most cases the general idea is good and therefore also applied.

Cheers,
_

akoskm wrote: I suggest you to back up your entire .kde4 directory. This upgrade is far away from compatibility, it's more like a fresh install. Almost nothing upgrades... KMail, KOrganizer, Konqueror, etc.
Good luck.

Oh, bloody great!
After having to fart about to get 4.1 working half-decently after Kubuntu removed KDE3, they go and bugger up the configuration again so I'm going to have to waste more time just so I can keep working.

I wonder if Linus has any good tips on migrating to Gnome?

beermad wrote:After having to fart about to get 4.1 working half-decently after Kubuntu removed KDE3, they go and bugger up the configuration again so I'm going to have to waste more time just so I can keep working.

I always wonder what benefit distributors see in breaking the upgrade path.

beermad wrote:I wonder if Linus has any good tips on migrating to Gnome?

I am not sure if distributors just break KDE's upgrade path or GNOME's as well, but maybe he has some tips on migrating to a distribution which targets people who upgrade rather than reinstall every version.

Cheers,
_

anda_skoa wrote:

beermad wrote:After having to fart about to get 4.1 working half-decently after Kubuntu removed KDE3, they go and bugger up the configuration again so I'm going to have to waste more time just so I can keep working.

I always wonder what benefit distributors see in breaking the upgrade path.

Probably not much. But as far as I can see from this and other threads, it's the developers who are breaking the upgrade path.

Maybe mine's an old-fashioned mindset, but whenever I've delivered applications in the past that aren't compatible with previous versions, I've made sure configs got converted during the upgrade.

beermad wrote:Probably not much. But as far as I can see from this and other threads, it's the developers who are breaking the upgrade path.

That could be as well, however I am not aware of any report indicating such a problem. Usually reports indicate that the local prefix has been changed from .kde to .kde4 or the other way around between versions and that the tool responsible for moving/copying the files did not work reliably or had to be run manually before running the next version.

beermad wrote:Maybe mine's an old-fashioned mindset, but whenever I've delivered applications in the past that aren't compatible with previous versions, I've made sure configs got converted during the upgrade.

Absolutely.
KDE even has infrastructure for automated config upgrades.

Unfortunately automated conversion relies on the old config being accessible.
Externally changing config paths gets applications into a "being run for the first time" scenario.

Cheers,
_