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. > > _______________________________________________ Evolution-list mailing list Evolution-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/evolution-list