Update MXLinux 19 to 21? copy Home directory?

[ssfc72]

It appears the recommended way to upgrade, is to do a fresh install of MXLinux 21.
In order not to lose your MXLinux 19 programs etc., I believe it is advised to copy your Home directory and then copy it back into the new MXLinux install?

Does anyone know whether a simple copy of the Home directory files will also copy any hidden files?

Lately my MXLinux 19 has seemed to caused my screen display to be washed out. The contrast seems to be very low and the shading has disappeared, making it hard to see light coloured borders and shading on a web page.
Adjusting he screen brightness does not help and I don't see any way to adjust the contrast level of the display.

If MXLinux 21 does not fix this then I will have to ditch the Distro and install maybe Pepermint Linux.

This is happening on my Dell XPS 13" notebook computer and it has seemed to always have had a bit of a problem with the screen being too bright and not enough contrast. 

[buster]

I've never copied /home back in. I've always installed without formatting /home. I do know you will have to reinstall any software that isn't in the default apts. I can think of no reason why the hidden files wouldn't be included, but who am I to say? MXLinux becoming a distant memory for me.

One of the reasons I moved away from Lite is the upgrade to a new series - it had to be a fresh install. I like pressing a key and it upgrades and loses not much at all, such as with Mint.

Used to use MXLinux a lot too but when I moved to virtual I found Xfce desktops don't copy-paste well with the host.

How many decades old is your desktop Bill?

[fox]

I can't see any reason why copying the Home folder wouldn't copy hidden files, but you can try it and check, yourself. However, even before you do that, you might want to try the current MX version live distro to see how your xps screen display reacts to it.

[Jason]

Your programs aren't installed in your home directory unless you put a self-contained package format like an AppImage in it. But settings for them usually are, if they're desktop programs anyway. Server programs are a different kind of beast. Browser bookmarks are in there, in a hidden folder.

If it's suggested to copy over your files in your home directory it's to retain those settings. That's not a bad idea if you don't have /home on a separate partition.

Anyway, to get back to your question, whether or not hidden files are copied depends on how you copy them. If you're doing it graphically, what you see is what you get copied/moved. So if you can see it and select it (kind of hard if you can't see it) then you can copy/move it. So if you need to move just certain hidden files, for example, you need to turn the 'view hidden files' option on so you can select them. But if you're copying/moving a folder, everything in that folder, including hidden files/directories will be copied/moved, too no matter whether the option is on or not. So the easy way is to to just move your entire home folder somewhere (e.g. move the folder 'bill'). Don't move the entire /home folder or you could end up with /home/home/bill which would make Jason sad.

Incidentally, if you copy files on the command-line with the wild card or even the folder, you won't like the results. The hidden files/directories don't get copied. Geeks use 'rsync' for that but that's beyond the scope of this post.

I'm not sure what's going on with your screen. Check in your settings to see if there is a brightness control under your energy settings. Sometimes you can control the brightness there. Sometimes you can't. But it may be why you can't adjust the brightness in the usual way (the notebook keys) because it took it over.

Btw, this website claims to show you how to upgrade from MX-19 to MX-21. You have to be comfortable with the command-line to do it and I haven't tried it myself. It might be worth a shot. In any case, this would be a good time to use an image tool to get back if something goes awry. You can use include your /home directory in Timeshift but remember that if you restore it, it will clobber any existing files you already have when you do so, not just the system (i.e. Linux system and programs) folders. Don't use it like that way normally for that reason.

[ssfc72]

Thanks for the help, Buster.  My dell XPS notebook computer has only 2 partitions on the SSD. One partition for the Distro and a very small partition for the Swap.
The XPS notebook computer is from 2018. Yes, that sucks when you have to do a fresh install of the Distro, to get the latest upgrade.

I've never copied /home back in. I've always installed without formatting /home. I do know you will have to reinstall any software that isn't in the default apts. I can think of no reason why the hidden files wouldn't be included, but who am I to say? MXLinux becoming a distant memory for me.

One of the reasons I moved away from Lite is the upgrade to a new series - it had to be a fresh install. I like pressing a key and it upgrades and loses not much at all, such as with Mint.

Used to use MXLinux a lot too but when I moved to virtual I found Xfce desktops don't copy-paste well with the host.

How many decades old is your desktop Bill?

[ssfc72]

Thanks Fox for the help. Good idea, I will do a Live boot of the latest MXLinux from a usb thumb drive, to see if the latest MXLinux displays the notebook screen with good contrast and shading.

I can't see any reason why copying the Home folder wouldn't copy hidden files, but you can try it and check, yourself. However, even before you do that, you might want to try the current MX version live distro to see how your xps screen display reacts to it.

[ssfc72]

Thanks for the help jason.  It is not the brightness of the notebook screen that is a problem. I can adjust the brightness without a problem. It is the lack of contrast that I think is the problem. I cannot see the shading and borders of a web page and that makes it extremely hard to view a webpage that uses borders and shading, to display information from a chart or graph ( such as on a weather forecast page).

Your programs aren't installed in your home directory unless you put a self-contained package format like an AppImage in it. But settings for them usually are, if they're desktop programs anyway. Server programs are a different kind of beast. Browser bookmarks are in there, in a hidden folder.

If it's suggested to copy over your files in your home directory it's to retain those settings. That's not a bad idea if you don't have /home on a separate partition.

Anyway, to get back to your question, whether or not hidden files are copied depends on how you copy them. If you're doing it graphically, what you see is what you get copied/moved. So if you can see it and select it (kind of hard if you can't see it) then you can copy/move it. So if you need to move just certain hidden files, for example, you need to turn the 'view hidden files' option on so you can select them. But if you're copying/moving a folder, everything in that folder, including hidden files/directories will be copied/moved, too no matter whether the option is on or not. So the easy way is to to just move your entire home folder somewhere (e.g. move the folder 'bill'). Don't move the entire /home folder or you could end up with /home/home/bill which would make Jason sad.

Incidentally, if you copy files on the command-line with the wild card or even the folder, you won't like the results. The hidden files/directories don't get copied. Geeks use 'rsync' for that but that's beyond the scope of this post.

I'm not sure what's going on with your screen. Check in your settings to see if there is a brightness control under your energy settings. Sometimes you can control the brightness there. Sometimes you can't. But it may be why you can't adjust the brightness in the usual way (the notebook keys) because it took it over.

Btw, this website claims to show you how to upgrade from MX-19 to MX-21. You have to be comfortable with the command-line to do it and I haven't tried it myself. It might be worth a shot. In any case, this would be a good time to use an image tool to get back if something goes awry. You can use include your /home directory in Timeshift but remember that if you restore it, it will clobber any existing files you already have when you do so, not just the system (i.e. Linux system and programs) folders. Don't use it like that way normally for that reason.

[Jason]

It seems really odd that software could possibly do that. I haven't played with enough laptops to really know but on my laptop, brightness is the only display setting I can configure, even in the BIOS. You've probably already looked into this but two questions to consider:

1. Could it be hardware-related? Have you tried a flash drive with MX 21 or any other Linux distro to see if you have the contrast issue still?

2. Are you using an external monitor?

I noticed that I wasn't able to use the brightness keys in Linux if I was using the notebook display and the external monitor at the same time. Still, that's brightness and not contrast. But I've noticed that enough brightness also makes it hard to see the picture elements you've mentioned.

Let us know if you figure it out. It's quite a conundrum.

Just thought of something else. Can you do a screenshot and post it here? I'm wondering if we'd see the same issue with the washed-out colour on our displays.

[ssfc72]

Ok, I tried the latest MXLinux 21 on the Dell XPS 13" notebook, booting it as a Live Distro from a USB thumb drive.  The contrast issue I was seeing on various web pages, seems to be ok, now.
So I will go ahead and start an install of a fresh version of MXLinux 21. :-)

[Jason]

Have fun! And let us know how you like it on the Distributions board. Make a new post if you like or you can add to mine. I'm going to get around to adding a proper review hopefully before the next version comes out.