Reinstall 2.8 without losing my settings

[gold_finger]

I know nothing about the programs you listed, but highlighted in blue (below) the home files that may be associated with the use of one or more of them.  (Those are my guesses -- I'm not sure whether or not some are associated.)

Having said that, based on what you said it definitely sounds like you had to do more than normal tweeking to get the programs to work and had to make changes in other areas of the file system.  Therefore I recommend you do not upgrade to LL 3 until you can retrace the steps you took before and copy all of the necessary files that you made or made changes to.

ve3clg@OptiPlex-330:~$ ls -la {~,~/.config}
/home/ve3clg:
total 4700
drwxr-xr-x 35 ve3clg ve3clg    4096 Sep 17 13:31 .
drwxr-xr-x  4 root  root      4096 Jun 28 15:17 ..
drwx------  3 ve3clg ve3clg    4096 Jun 10  2015 .adobe
drwx------  2 ve3clg ve3clg    4096 Sep  9 10:10 .aptitude
-rwxr-x---  1 ve3clg ve3clg    124 Jun 10  2015 .asoundrc
-rw-------  1 ve3clg ve3clg      52 Sep 17 17:35 .bash_history
-rwxr-x---  1 ve3clg ve3clg    435 Jun 10  2015 .bashrc
drwx------ 12 ve3clg ve3clg    4096 Sep 17 17:41 .cache
drwx------ 28 ve3clg ve3clg    4096 Sep 10 13:55 .config
drwx------  3 ve3clg ve3clg    4096 Jun 10  2015 .dbus
drwxrwxrwx  3 ve3clg ve3clg    4096 Sep 15 15:05 Desktop
-rw-r--r--  1 ve3clg ve3clg      23 Jun 10  2015 .dmrc
drwxr-xr-x  2 ve3clg ve3clg    4096 Jun 10  2015 Documents
drwxr-xr-x  2 ve3clg ve3clg    4096 Apr 11 11:10 Downloads
drwxrwxr-x  2 ve3clg ve3clg    4096 Jun 10  2015 .fonts
drwx------  4 ve3clg ve3clg    4096 Sep 17 13:31 .gconf
drwxr-xr-x 24 ve3clg ve3clg    4096 Jun 22 16:32 .gimp-2.8
-rw-r-----  1 ve3clg ve3clg      0 Sep 17 17:45 .gksu.lock
drwx------  3 ve3clg ve3clg    4096 Jun 10  2015 .gnome2
drwx------  2 ve3clg ve3clg    4096 Jun 10  2015 .gnome2_private
drwx------  2 ve3clg ve3clg    4096 Mar 26 18:49 .gnupg
drwxrwxr-x  2 ve3clg ve3clg    4096 Jun 15  2015 .gstreamer-0.10
-rwxr-x---  1 ve3clg ve3clg      20 Jun 10  2015 .gtk-bookmarks
-rwxr-x---  1 ve3clg ve3clg    104 Jun 10  2015 .gtkrc-2.0
drwxr--r--  2 ve3clg ve3clg    4096 Jun 15  2015 .hardinfo
-rw-------  1 ve3clg ve3clg    6840 Sep 17 13:31 .ICEauthority
drwxrwxr-x  3 ve3clg ve3clg    4096 Jan 16  2016 .java
-rwxr-xr-x  1 ve3clg ve3clg 2859769 Jul 24 13:22 jnos2.0k.rcJul3TOK
-rw-r--r--  1 ve3clg ve3clg 1742232 Jul 11 16:11 jnos2.0k.rcJul8-2016.tgz
drwxr-xr-x  8 ve3clg ve3clg    4096 Nov  7  2015 .kodi
drwxrwxr-x  4 ve3clg ve3clg    4096 Feb  8  2016 .llupgradebackup
drwxrwxr-x  3 ve3clg ve3clg    4096 Jun 10  2015 .local
drwxrwxr-x  6 ve3clg ve3clg    4096 Jun  6 11:34 .luckyBackup
drwx------  3 ve3clg ve3clg    4096 Jun 10  2015 .macromedia
drwx------  4 ve3clg ve3clg    4096 Jun 10  2015 .mozilla
drwxr-xr-x  2 ve3clg ve3clg    4096 Jun 10  2015 Music
drwxrwxr-x  2 ve3clg ve3clg    4096 Jun 18  2015 .mutt
-rw-------  1 ve3clg ve3clg      33 Jun  7 17:48 .nano_history
drwxr-xr-x  2 ve3clg ve3clg    4096 Jun 10  2015 Pictures
drwxr-xr-x  2 ve3clg ve3clg    4096 Jun 10  2015 Public
drwxrwxr-x  2 ve3clg ve3clg    4096 Feb 14  2016 .steam
drwxr-xr-x  2 ve3clg ve3clg    4096 Jun 10  2015 Templates
drwx------  3 ve3clg ve3clg    4096 Sep 17 17:45 .thumbnails
drwx------  4 ve3clg ve3clg    4096 Mar 19 15:29 .thunderbird
drwxr-xr-x  2 ve3clg ve3clg    4096 Jun 10  2015 Videos
drwxrwxr-x  4 ve3clg ve3clg    4096 Apr  6 16:45 .wine
-rw-------  1 ve3clg ve3clg    169 Sep 17 13:31 .Xauthority
-rw-rw-r--  1 ve3clg ve3clg    131 Nov  8  2015 .xinputrc
-rw-rw-r--  1 ve3clg ve3clg    7570 Sep 10 14:01 .xscreensaver
-rw-------  1 ve3clg ve3clg      35 Sep 17 13:31 .xsession-errors
-rw-------  1 ve3clg ve3clg      78 Sep 16 15:04 .xsession-errors.old



/home/ve3clg/.config:
total 132
drwx------ 28 ve3clg ve3clg 4096 Sep 10 13:55 .
drwxr-xr-x 35 ve3clg ve3clg 4096 Sep 17 13:31 ..
drwx------  2 ve3clg ve3clg 4096 Sep 11 19:29 autostart
drwx------  2 ve3clg ve3clg 4096 Oct 18  2015 bleachbit
drwxrwxr-x  2 ve3clg ve3clg 4096 Jun 15  2015 catfish
drwxrwxr-x  2 ve3clg ve3clg 4096 Sep 15 17:34 dconf
drwxr-xr-x  2 ve3clg ve3clg 4096 Jul  5 11:43 galculator
drwx------  2 ve3clg ve3clg 4096 Sep 10 13:29 gnome-hearts
drwx------  2 ve3clg ve3clg 4096 Sep 11 19:25 gtk-2.0
drwxrwxr-x  2 ve3clg ve3clg 4096 Jun 10  2015 gtk-3.0
drwx------  2 ve3clg ve3clg 4096 Jun 10  2015 htop
drwx------  3 ve3clg ve3clg 4096 Jun 10  2015 ibus
drwx------  2 ve3clg ve3clg 4096 Jun 10  2015 leafpad
drwxrwxr-x  3 ve3clg ve3clg 4096 Jun 10  2015 libreoffice
drwxrwxr-x  3 ve3clg ve3clg 4096 Jun 10  2015 lite
drwx------  2 ve3clg ve3clg 4096 Jun 10  2015 lxterminal
drwxrwxr-x  3 ve3clg ve3clg 4096 Sep 15 15:29 menus
-rw-rw-r--  1 ve3clg ve3clg  30 Sep 10 13:55 pavucontrol.ini
drwx------  2 ve3clg ve3clg 4096 Jun 10  2015 pulse
drwx------  2 ve3clg ve3clg 4096 Jun 10  2015 ristretto
drwx------  2 ve3clg ve3clg 4096 Jun 22 09:45 teamviewer
drwxrwxr-x  7 ve3clg ve3clg 4096 Mar  7  2016 teamviewer9
drwx------  2 ve3clg ve3clg 4096 Sep 15 17:34 Thunar
-rw-rw-r--  1 ve3clg ve3clg 4132 Jun 21 19:01 Trolltech.conf
drwx------  2 ve3clg ve3clg 4096 Jun 10  2015 upstart
-rw-------  1 ve3clg ve3clg  632 Jun 10  2015 user-dirs.dirs
-rw-rw-r--  1 ve3clg ve3clg    5 Jun 10  2015 user-dirs.locale
drwx------  2 ve3clg ve3clg 4096 Sep  2 10:55 VirtualBox
drwx------  2 ve3clg ve3clg 4096 Jun 15 15:51 vlc
drwx------  2 ve3clg ve3clg 4096 Jun 15  2015 xfburn
drwxrwxr-x  6 ve3clg ve3clg 4096 Sep  4 09:46 xfce4
drwx------  2 ve3clg ve3clg 4096 Jun 10  2015 xfce4-session
ve3clg@OptiPlex-330:~$

What I and others do is keep a set of detailed notes to refer to when re-installing or upgrading, especially for things that needed special instructions to implement in the first place.  If you don't already do that, you might want to start.  A good note keeping program called Cherrytree is an excellent way to keep track of things like that, as well as keeping notes on just about anything else.  Check it out if you don't already use it.

Home page:  http://www.giuspen.com/cherrytree/

Instruction manual:  http://www.giuspen.com/cherrytreemanual/...ction.html

Install instructions for LL:  https://www.linuxliteos.com/forums/tutor...herrytree/