Preparing upgrade to Jessie

[geoffkaniuk]

I hope this is the right place to get some opinions on my planned upgrade to Jessie.

I am now wanting to move away from Gnome 3. The fallback to Gnome 2 is not satisfactory, and so I am intending to try Xfce. Their online documentation looks good.

I note that there is a web browser, but I do not see an email client. I prefer to download my emails for offline viewing. At the moment I am using Evolution which is always very slow to load. What is a good replacement for Evolution? My needs are light - no tasks or calendar required. Just email folders, address books and spam filtering will do.

I have been developing C++ programs in Eclipse. It has some good features, but its indexer is very frustrating, especially when debugging. Also the one in Wheezy is buggy. So I have been looking around at the othe IDE's such as Anjuta (only one project at a time), Codeblocks(no makefile export), codelite(maybe useful).

I wonder if the eclipse version that ships with Jessie has improved.
Indexing .h files?
Switch the build configuration from Debug to Release for a collection of projects?
If these problems were fixed it would be a huge improvement.

Other applications I continually use are Texmaker, Gnuplot, Gnucash, Gimp, and OpenOffice. I assume no issues with these.

I look forward to your comments on working with Jessie+Xfce+Eclipse.

[somebodyelse]

Icedove, Claws, Mutt. I use the first and have no experience of the others.

**edited out the t-bird**

[fsmithred]

Thunderbird in Debian is called Icedove.
Claws is good, and it's lighter weight than T-bird.
If you want gpg support for icedove, install enigmail.
I'm pretty sure that Claws will handle gpg (signing and encryption) but I don't remember what I had to do for that.

[Ardouos]

From what I am saying is if you decide to run a straight upgrade from 7 to 8; rather than a wipe and load.

First I would read this:
https://www.debian.org/releases/jessie/ ... ng.en.html

When I upgrade my system I ensure that I upgrade in a tty environment without X running. I also remove all contrib and non-free firmware in order to make the experience as smooth as possible. This is because upgrading with just main/ free software is the most tested and guaranteed way for a swift upgrade.

Also.... Backup. Backup your root drive, your home directory and any important configuration files.

Clonezilla is generally recommended for this but you can use whatever you want...

I normally use clonezilla for my root directory and bzip my home directory.

[somebodyelse]

Doh what was I thinking.

[geoffkaniuk]

Many thanks for all the helpful comments.

As part of my preparation, I am installing to an existing dual-boot windows+linux system, planning to change the linux os, keeping the windows os the same. I have now had a chance to run the live xfce install cd on the laptop and its desktop looks perfect for development. It also answers the question about an email client - mutt is included, as are most of the other standard applications I mentioned. I would still be interested in any experience with the latest Eclipse, if you have such.

During my attempts to install via the netinst cd I was faced with a situation during partitioning with partman that I could not resolve, and so abandoned the installation - without damage! The boot partition in partman is displayed thus:

Code: Select all

#2	primary	14.0 GB	B	ntfs 

When I select this partition, I am required to specify how it is to be used, and presented with a list of possibilities including swap and ext3. But ntfs is not listed!

This partition contains the windows system and I do not want to disturb that. I have also examined the disk using gparted and it gives detailed size information and familiar mount points - the visual layout also inspires confidence! The installer manual section 3.5 suggests that one should pre-partition for a multi-boot system.

My general question:

Should I partition first with gparted and skip partitioning completely in the installer?

Many thanks in advance for your insights.

[millpond]

Many thanks for all the helpful comments.

As part of my preparation, I am installing to an existing dual-boot windows+linux system, planning to change the linux os, keeping the windows os the same. I have now had a chance to run the live xfce install cd on the laptop and its desktop looks perfect for development. It also answers the question about an email client - mutt is included, as are most of the other standard applications I mentioned. I would still be interested in any experience with the latest Eclipse, if you have such.

During my attempts to install via the netinst cd I was faced with a situation during partitioning with partman that I could not resolve, and so abandoned the installation - without damage! The boot partition in partman is displayed thus:

Code: Select all

#2	primary	14.0 GB	B	ntfs 

When I select this partition, I am required to specify how it is to be used, and presented with a list of possibilities including swap and ext3. But ntfs is not listed!

This partition contains the windows system and I do not want to disturb that. I have also examined the disk using gparted and it gives detailed size information and familiar mount points - the visual layout also inspires confidence! The installer manual section 3.5 suggests that one should pre-partition for a multi-boot system.

My general question:

Should I partition first with gparted and skip partitioning completely in the installer?

Many thanks in advance for your insights.

I would keep the latest Eclipse and Java 8 in /opt. This should allow for more flexibility to keep your own upgrade cycles. I havent tried it, but Netbeans *might* be a good alternative to Eclipse, though it uses a different set of libraries.

[spacex]

During my attempts to install via the netinst cd I was faced with a situation during partitioning with partman that I could not resolve, and so abandoned the installation - without damage! The boot partition in partman is displayed thus:

Code: Select all

#2	primary	14.0 GB	B	ntfs 

When I select this partition, I am required to specify how it is to be used, and presented with a list of possibilities including swap and ext3. But ntfs is not listed!

This partition contains the windows system and I do not want to disturb that.

You are presented with an option you didn't mention, "DO NOT USE THE PARTITION". If you choose that, the partition won't be touched.