Re: Migrating GNUstep home folder to another computer

[Yavor Doganov]

В Tue, 24 Jul 2018 18:43:24 +0200, Patrick CARDONA написа:

> I started from a clean GNUstep folder, and things went better, as
> expected :
> - Alt/Meta Keys work again.

So it was due to some default that you have set in your Ubuntu
environment.

> As You told me about I could meet some downgrade behaviour due to older
> versions, do You think I should add Backports repositories in my
> /etc/apt/sources.list ?

No; there are no backports of GNUstep packages.  We never had requests
from users for backports and they wouldn't be possible in many cases
due to new versions of the libraries that are not available in stable.
That's certainly true for GNUMail's newest release which requires
Pantomime 1.3.0 and that's not available even in unstable (it's been
in the NEW queue[0] for a month, waiting for ftpmasters' approval).

[0] https://ftp-master.debian.org/new.html

> Do You thing also Testing is stable enought with GNUstep software ?

Well, it depends on your usage pattern and priorities.  Using testing
is perfectly fine in many scenarios.  Should you decide to switch to
testing, please note that upgrading is not guaranteed to work, it's
safer to use the weekly images [1].

[1] https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/weekly-builds/amd64/

> I thought - and obviously I was wrong - that Debian was more up to
> date than Ubuntu.

Debian is more up to date than Ubuntu, that's right (with some
exceptions when Ubuntu do some library transitions in advance).  But
you switched from Ubuntu's last stable release to Debian's last stable
release and they are never in sync.  Stretch was released more than a
year ago so it's natural that the software is older.

> Also, I would like to deal with a lighter install process : no Gnome
> desktop (no Desktop tasksel), just the basic X server, wmaker and
> GNUstep apps with a few other (firefox, and so on...) which I did
> wrappers.

This should be easily doable if you select Expert mode in the Debian
Installer.

> Maybe I should not backup the GNUstep directory ? Maybe, if I install on
> Debian again, it is not a matter...

If you install Debian testing, there shouldn't be discrepancies
because the package versions are (almost) the same in Bionic.  So it's
likely to work.

> But I need first to understand how the things could work this way. For
> example, when I use the dockapp wmudmount to mount my USB external
> drive, the disk icon do not show up on the desktop.

There is no such package, perhaps it was a typo?

> I need to refresh ("Tools/Hide desktop" then "Tools/Show desktop")
> to see this icon on the desktop of the workspace.

This is probably a GWorkspace bug, could be fixed.