Hi list, I have a Koha 2.2.9 system running on a machine with SLES 9 (SUSE Linux Enterpise Server) with SP3 (Service Pack 3), running Apache 2.2.0 and MySQL 4.0.18 I'm now considering migrating it to another machine that will run Koha 3 Beta 2, on a server with SLES 10 with SP1 (Service Pack 1), running Apache 2.2.4 and MySQL 5.0.26 I have done a mysqldump of the koha database in the Koha 2.2.9 system. Unfortunately, I found out that the dump has mixed character encodings, namely that some characters are in Unicode ("UTF-8") and others are in Latin-1 ("ISO 8859-1" and/or "ISO-8859-15"). I am Portuguese (living in Portugal), so the "problematic" characters are the Portuguese accented characters ("ã" - a tilde; "ç" - c cedilla; "é" - e acute; and other characters with accents). This leads to my first question: 1 - Should a Koha 2.2.9 system be preferably set up for Unicode ("UTF-8") or Latin-1 ("ISO-8859-1" / "ISO 8859-15")? By reading the following page: Encoding and Character Sets in Koha http://wiki.koha.org/doku.php?id=encodingscratchpad ... and namely, the first version of that page - http://wiki.koha.org/doku.php?id=encodingscratchpad&rev=1152103445 - it seems that for versions of Koha >= 2.2.6, I should set up the "locale", Apache and MySQL for Unicode ("UTF-8"). Is this correct? My next question is this one: 2 - What is the "best" way to convert this "mixed" mysqldump (UTF-8 / ISO-8859-1) file to a "pure" UTF-8 one (or to a "pure" Latin-1 one)? I have already found out these pages, but would appreciate feedback from fellow Koha users that already had this problem: How to sanitize a string with mixed encodings - UTF-8 and Latin1 http://www.fischerlaender.net/php/sanitize-utf8-latin1 Encoding issues MySql Latin / UTF-8 http://www.vlugge.eu/blog/algemeen/encoding-issues-mysql-latin-utf-8/ Mixed ISO-8859/UTF-8 conversion http://www.perlmonks.org/?node_id=642617 And now, the "main question": 3 - Is the best migration strategy, the following sequence: 3.1. - "Transform" the mysqldump to a "pure" UTF-8 file 3.2. - Install Koha 2.2.9 on the "second" machine (running SLES 10) 3.3 - Import the mysqldump on the "second" machine 3.4 - Install Koha 3 Beta 2 on the "second" machine 3.5 - Follow the steps described at: Upgrading from Koha 2.2 to Koha 3.0 http://wiki.koha.org/doku.php?id=22_to_30 ... or is there an easier / better way to do this? Thanks for taking the time to read this! ANY help / information / feedback would be much appreciated! :) Best wishes, Ricardo Dias Marques lists AT ricmarques DOT net