The Debian KDE maintainers website

Kaboom, the Debian KDE settings migration wizard

So, what does kaboom do?

kaboom is tool for migrating your KDE user settings and data files from KDE 3 to KDE 4. Depending on the options you choose, you may:

Use you current KDE 3 settings as initial for KDE 4.
Use your existing KDE 4 settings and replace current KDE 3 settings.
Merge current KDE 4 settings with current KDE 3 settings (experimental).
Start KDE with defaults settings and data.

And, optionally but highly recommended, backup your existing KDE 3 settings.

Why is this needed?

Debian uses the ~./kde directory (where ~ refers to the path of your HOME directory) to store user settings and data. So, there are two possible different situations in which this wizard helps:

You have been using KDE 3 and you need to migrate to KDE 4. You now may want to start with a fresh KDE 4 installation, or perhaps you may want to keep your KDE 3 settings as much as possible. Optionally, you may want to do a backup of KDE 3's config files.
You have been using KDE 4 from the experimental repositories. While in experimental, KDE 4 used ~./kde4 as the directory for data and settings. Now you may want to keep that config or start from a fresh install.

Description of the choices

1. Use you current KDE 3 settings as initial for KDE 4

The wizard will not make any changes to your current KDE 3 settings directory. It may only optionally back this directory up if the appropriate option below is enabled. This scenario is recommended for users who have not actively used KDE 4 or any of its applications (e.g. Okular or KTorrent which were released with Lenny) on this system previously and wish the new KDE 4 desktop and its applications to use as much settings from the old KDE 3 counterparts as possible.

2. Use your existing KDE 4 settings and replace current KDE 3 settings

The wizard will remove current KDE 3 settings directory and move current KDE 4 settings directory into its place. Effectively, you will lose all settings and data the KDE 3 desktop and applications have stored unless the backup option below is enabled. This scenario should be useful for users who already actively and almost exclusively use KDE 4 desktop and applications as previously packaged by Debian and do not care about losing settings of (a few) KDE 3 applications anymore.

3. Merge current KDE 4 settings with current KDE 3 settings (experimental)

The wizard will copy contents of the current KDE 4 settings directory on top of the current KDE 3 settings directory giving preference to the KDE 4 configuration files in case of filename collisions. In theory, this should let you preserve settings of both KDE 4 and a few KDE 3 applications you still use. The downside is that this migration path is not well tested and the resulting KDE 4 settings directory might get polluted with useless configuration and data files which KDE 4 ports no longer use. Use this scenario at your own risk.

4. Start KDE with defaults settings and data

The wizard will remove (or move to backup) existing KDE 3 settings directory including such data as contacts, locally stored mails, accounts in KMail and Kopete, bookmarks, etc.