Changing from 10.04 LTS to 12.04 LTS - importing all email settings and mail from 10.04/Evolution 2.28.3

[David Fletcher]

On Thu, 2012-07-12 at 06:03 -0700, Pongo A. Pan wrote:
> On Thu, 2012-07-12 at 13:45 +0100, Liam Proven wrote:
> > On 12 July 2012 11:13, Andrew <andy.allen at virgin.net> wrote:
> > > Running 10.04 LTS at present but now thinking of installing 12.04 LTS.
> > > However, the email client in 12.04 (Thunderbird) looks a bit different
> > > from the current one (Evolution 2.28.3)
> > 
> > It is, it's a different app.
> > 
> > However you can still install Evolution should you prefer it. Nobody
> > is forcing you to move.
> > 
> > >  - so will I be able to import
> > > all my email settings etc from the evolution-backup.tar.gz file produced
> > > by Evolution 2.28.3?
> > 
> > No.
> > 
> > If you reinstall, just install Evolution when you're done.
> > 
> > If you upgrade, Evolution will still be your default email app afterwards.
> 
> It would probably be a good idea to use evolution's built-in backup
> method (File -> Backup) on the old evolution and do a restore on the
> new.  Lucid, for some reason came with an already obsolete version of
> evolution; Precise uses a much newer one which uses a quite different
> method of storing its data.  Evo's a pretty smart app and ordinarily it
> just handles the transition between different versions of itself nicely,
> but this is one case where it does not always work properly.
> 

I'd say definitely install to a new hard drive - DON'T overwrite the
current installation until you're sure everything is working again.

I did this, then tried just copying ~/.evolution into my new home
directory and it didn't work - no address book or anything. I put back
the old hard drive, did the evolution backup, then restored this file in
the new install and it works again.

So, I don't know if it's just ~/.evolution you're supposed to need, or
something else. All I can say is just be very careful.

Dave