Saga.
- Short story to try to summarize it (satisfied KDE user -> happy XFCE user):
I paniced, allegedly made multiple user errors, didn't know better in time (about the major update and about how to recover), and already reinstalled (after a troubleshooting try on boot rescue/netork rescue) since (mostly if not fully a user error), yet am happy with XFCE now. (had a backup and settled in since.)
Things work in many ways now more smoothly than it was on my previous (not bad IMO) KDE install even if not all is perfect and even if I miss some flexibility (writting as a newby on both KDE and XFCE).
Long story which I'm trying to make as accureate as possible but may fail a bit:
As a KDE user, I somehow missed the major updates notes in time, and due to panic when I was logged out and password and net password promts appeared, I messed up connectivity. I think I restarted as connectivity lost, "nothing worked" or seemed to, and I didnt know what to do. Never do that in an update (I just thought it's already ruined with an actual full irrecoverable crash and couldn't be completed in that session, and didn't get it then that possibly things could have worked if I tried to wait)
Tried boot recue in addition to netwwork rescue try. (and as was shown on a later session on TTY and on chroot without being able to restore it by troubleshooting due to some other mess) and this while I thought I wasn't able to login fully forever as after restart black screen appeared after the KDE login/welcome screen, and restart/power buttom press didn't help multiple times (it's a laptop BTW)
Basically: panic/misinformation/user errors had caused me to lose the installation. New insrallation (I chose XFCE [beta] this time) was a breeze.
Either way, no matter, I am already settled on XFCE by now (considered swiching from KDE to XFCE for a while) and could get my files, contacts and important bookmarks etc.
[I do have a very few annoyances/miss some flexibility but for now am very happy with the XFCE install which is by now already initially customized with basic things I need/feel at home about, though I can't backup pannel settings due to some unknown issue - pressing on the appropriate button didn't help/did nothing, and having no idea how to backup other settings even theoreticaly, and still having no idea regarding "good practices" with XFCE environment/apps chosing/plugins etc and considering I had some trial and error while chosing apps which could affect the system later since I didn't think about autoremove in time when removing such unwanted tried apps. I do know XFCE a little from other OS, this may have helped me setting up eventually as I did. I do have an updated system/DE agnostic peronal files backup, though without settings spare some "non DE" basic ones, in case things goes wrongly, and means to try to take files from a system in case it will be needed. My system - by its previous settings - already shouldn't have been locked/slept unless crashed or forcibly (and anyway there was not much inactivity period even if I was wrong) so IMO it was made by the update - maybe when/as things like services had to restart, but I can't give logs from prvious install since I forgot backing those up may be useful for others, sorry.]
Maybe one day I'll try KDE6 (or whichever the current version will be by then) but not any soon.
