Upgrading KDE 2.2.2 to 3.1.4
 

I installed KDE 2.2.2 by accident, mainly because I didnt have the KDE officiel backport in my sources.list.

I added the backport fra http://www.kde.org, and ran "apt-get update", afterwards i typed "apt-get dist-upgrade"... and the system was updated...

When KDE is loaded, i login with my user, the splash screen appears, loads and then nothing happens.. There is a Debian background image, and nothing else... No taskbar, icons.. nothing..

I have defined KDM as X manager..

I dont know if it has any to say, but writing "update-alternatives --config x-window-manager" there is only sawfish and twm to select from..

Any Ideas??

I got that same problem installing 3.1.4 on Sid. Eventually the KDE Window Manager would start properly but I still didn't have a taskbar. In the end I got so fed up with apt jerking me around I removed all the KDE packages I had installed and compiled arts, kdelibs and kdebase from source. Unfortunately, I'm now left in the situation that, if I go to install anything with even the slightest dependence on parts of those 3 packages, apt will clobber my source install in trying to satisfy those dependencies so I'm left trying to find a way to prevent that from happening.

subnet: which kde packages do you have installed? Do you have the kde package installed? Also, the 3.1.4 packages on kde.org are for stable/woody, I believe. So if you are using unstable or testing, they are no good, don't use them.

LSD: the way you get around apt clobbering things is by not putting things where apt will clobber them, of course. Use /usr/local as your own personal sandbox. --prefix=/usr/local is your friend.

I don't think apt will clobber them where I have them, KDE was installed using the default prefix /usr/kde/3.1 and Debian has them compiled using /usr. The big problem is that if apt installs any one of the component packages that make up kdebase, kdelibs or arts I'll have two copies of said package installed where only one is necessary. What I want to be able to do is fudge the "installed" status on each one of those component packages so that apt doesn't try installing them at all. I'm fairly certain this is possible with Portage (if I'm understanding the meaning of the 'inject' command correctly), I'm just wondering if something similar is possible with apt.

when i "dpkg -l kde" ....it says none..

i have stable.. so.. no problem there..

if i "apt-get install kde" i get a lot of unmet depends...

I have recently done the upgrade from 2.2.2 to 3.1.3 and this morning to 3.1.4 and had no problems. I am running a 2.4.22 kernel. Here's how I went about the upgrade;

Here is my entry from sources.list;
deb http://download.kde.org/stable/3.1.4/Debian stable main
Next do apt-get update && apt-get install arts kdelibs kdebase kdegraphics kdeadmin.
Once these are installed and before reloading kde do apt-get install kdemultimedia kdepim kdenetwork (and anything else you may use)

This has worked on both ocassions for the 3.1.x versions and had no problems at all. You may have to fix some of the permissions eg kppp.

If you really want to pretend that what you have is everything that the packages provide (not a good idea), then you can use the equivs package to create "fake" packages that will help you fool the dependency system. Of course, it's just a bad idea and the wrong thing to do in general, but it's what you are asking for.

TigerOC.. you're the greatest.. the problem is solved..

As I've reformatted the Debian partition and doing what I should have done in the first place: obtaining Arch Linux and putting that on instead I really can't try it but if I can ever be bothered installing Debian again and KDE (or anything else for that matter) still won't play ball, I'll have to give that a shot. Thanks.

Pleased to hear it worked. Have been impressed with the 3.1.x kde.