[wplug] Best way to upgrade desktop?

[Vanco, Donald]

Coutch, Robert wrote:
> I've downloaded updates for KDE and Gnome for my SuSE 7.3 system.
> 
> Before I do anything, I was wondering if its better to remove KDE 2.2
> and Gnome 1.4 before installing
> KDE 3 and Gnome 2 - or - should I just upgrade with rpm -U

	If you're running Distro Foo and installing/upgrading packages
written for Distro Foo then a "Freshen" is the way to go.  If you're
installing packages from Distro Bar you need to remove and install, and in
my limited experience with this (loading Mandrake RPMs onto a RH system)
this usually ends in disaster.
	Detractors of RPM (e.g. those that haven't used it since RH6.2) may
be quick to point out that this is clearly a limiting factor for an RPM
based distro, but that's a bunch of hooey as you can get the source and
build an RPM yourself if none exists.  It's really, really easy -
particularly if someone has already provided an RPM spec file.

Anyway - regarding -U and -F.....
	rpm -Uvh <package>.rpm = upgrade the package - but if it's not
present install it
	rpm -Fvh <package>.rpm = update the package if it's installed, if
not - do nothing

	There are not many instances where I use -U, but I can see where it
might be required as dependencies get created (when applications "rev").  I
know that under RH several desktop package "recombinations" occurred
(ferinstance between KDE 2.x and 3.x) - creating more and / or less packages
to provide the same desktop support.  If that's the case with your distro of
choice a -U may be the way to go.

	And it's once again worth mentioning up2date for this process.


> My system is working great so I'm a little nervous about fixing
> something that isn't broke.
	Well, the desktop improvements are pretty nice and likely worth the
trouble.  Heck - if you're willing to remove and re-install then it sounds
like you really don't have anything to lose.

> In a related question - How do I customize menus in Gnome on RedHat 8.
> I tried using Nautilus but nothing was saved (maybe I needed root
> permission or a user menu space)?
> I searched the net but could not find what I needed.
	It's somewhere - let me do a bit of searching - but IIRC there
wasn't anything special about editing BlueCurve - it was done in the
traditional way your desktop of choice handles menu edits.  Certainly the
ability to "write" is required - but if you logged in as a user you should
have write perms on your own environment goodies.

YMMV
Don