Moving my Profile

[Daniel47]

I dual boot Win7 and Linux and I use SeaMonkey Suite for my e-mail and
internet browsing. SeaMonkey is related to Firefox (browser) and
Thunderbird (e-mail).

My C: drive is filling up, so I recently moved my SeaMonkey profile
(used for both my Win7 and Linux SeaMonkey installations) from C: to H:,
which is nearly empty! However, now when I boot up my Linux version of
SeaMonkey, it tells me my Profile is unavailable, it knows the profile
is on H: but is "seeing" it, sort of, as "read only", so cannot use it.

Something is niggling away at the back of my mind that when something is
moved in Windows, it's not really moved, just a link is made from the
"old" location to the "new" location. Is this right, or am I way off base?

If I am right, can I change something (i.e. really move the profile), so
that my Linux SeaMonkey will be able to use the same profile files as my
Win7 SeaMonkey??

TIA

Daniel

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

I dual boot Win7 and Linux and I use SeaMonkey Suite for my e-mail and
internet browsing. SeaMonkey is related to Firefox (browser) and
Thunderbird (e-mail).

My C: drive is filling up, so I recently moved my SeaMonkey profile
(used for both my Win7 and Linux SeaMonkey installations) from C: to H:,
which is nearly empty! However, now when I boot up my Linux version of
SeaMonkey, it tells me my Profile is unavailable, it knows the profile
is on H: but is "seeing" it, sort of, as "read only", so cannot use it.

Something is niggling away at the back of my mind that when something is
moved in Windows, it's not really moved, just a link is made from the
"old" location to the "new" location. Is this right, or am I way off base?

Way off base.

When you move something in Windows, it is copied to the new place and
deleted from the old place.

This is a problem sometimes, when the copy has failed, yet the deletion
was successful.

If I am right, can I change something (i.e. really move the profile), so
that my Linux SeaMonkey will be able to use the same profile files as my
Win7 SeaMonkey??

You need to tell the Linux program where the profile is and you need to
change the Linux permissions on the file. But Windows permissions aren't
the same as Linux permissions, and I don't know how to tell Linux what
the Windows permissions are.

 

[Paul]

Way off base.

When you move something in Windows, it is copied to the new place and
deleted from the old place.

This is a problem sometimes, when the copy has failed, yet the deletion
was successful.


You need to tell the Linux program where the profile is and you need to
change the Linux permissions on the file. But Windows permissions aren't
the same as Linux permissions, and I don't know how to tell Linux what
the Windows permissions are.

On Linux, Windows permissions are not preserved in any harmful way
(harmful to letting you do what needs doing). Basically, you should not
have a Windows style permissions problem, having a Linux program
access the info stored on a Windows NTFS or FAT32 partition.

This is an example of a command, run in a terminal, for
recursively listing permissions. This is how I'd figure out the permission
flags.

ls -algtR insert_path_info_here

Just going by memory, if I was in Ubuntu, the permissions on any
(Windows partition) file examined would be 600, which is rw. ... ... and
allows the user named "Ubuntu" to access the file in either a read or
a write mode. In that case, the permissions are "faked", and don't represent
any property extracted from the foreign file system itself. The 600
value is just "assigned" to each file so that Linux programs
will have something to work with. Whereas, Linux reading a native
Linux file system, all the permissions are fully working.

It would require feeding the Linux "mount" command, some optional
parameters, to shoot yourself in the foot. For example, you could
mount the Windows partition "read-only", rendering it impossible
for Seamonkey to use the folder at runtime. (It couldn't update
the cache folder, say.)

It's been threatened, that some day, the Linux file system would
fully honor all aspects of Windows permissions. And that would be
a sad day indeed (there's hardly be a reason to boot Linux any
more - I use Linux more for bypassing Windows permissions,
than anything else).

The profile for Seamonkey or Firefox (profile.ini and friends), should
not need to be moved. It can be hosted on the Windows partition,
and then it will be accessible from either a Linux OS, or
from Windows. Of course, you could always modify the Windows
permissions such that you can't access your own files. It could
happen...

*******

This is the contents of my Seamonkey profiles.ini :

------------------------------------
[General]
StartWithLastProfile=1

[Profile0]
Name=default
IsRelative=1
Path=Profiles/3wgzunft.default
------------------------------------

The magic part there, is the "IsRelative" flag. It would
be relative to the current working directory.

Now, if I was in Linux, there was a profile.ini in
the Linux file system, I would be editing that
with the mount point of the Windows stuff. In other
words, I need to edit the Linux version of profile.ini,
stored in its particular place, to point to the Windows
Profile folder, so there will be interworking. I haven't
tested this, but suspect I'd need to add the double quotes,
in order for "space" characters to not cause a problem.

IsRelative=0
Path="/media/WINXP/Documents and Settings/username/Application Data/Mozilla/SeaMonkey/Profiles/3wgzunft.default"

Using the Profile Manager, should take some of the
pain out of this exercise. After which, you could
exit Seamonkey, then go take a look at how it
edited the path. This doc covers aspects of
Firefox, Thunderbird, or Seamonkey. Using the
Profile Manager, should give a GUI means of
doing the selection of the folder.

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_Manager#Linux

HTH,
Paul

 

[John Williamson]

How big is your Seamonkey profile? Have you pruned its temporary and
cache files?

Way off base.

When you move something in Windows, it is copied to the new place and
deleted from the old place.

Has that been changed, then? Moving stuff *on the same drive* in Windows
always used to be a case of just changing the FAT or MFT to match the
new location. That's why I can "move" a 4 Gigabyte file from D:\Movies
to D:\Temp in a couple of seconds. Moving it to C:\Movies takes quite a
while, though, as it is physically moved by the copy and delete sequence
you mention, so you're right in that case.

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

Probably should address to the original poster.

Way off base.

When you move something in Windows, it is copied to the new place and
deleted from the old place.

This is a problem sometimes, when the copy has failed, yet the deletion
was successful.


You need to tell the Linux program where the profile is and you need to
change the Linux permissions on the file. But Windows permissions aren't
the same as Linux permissions, and I don't know how to tell Linux what
the Windows permissions are.

On Linux, Windows permissions are not preserved in any harmful way
(harmful to letting you do what needs doing). Basically, you should not
have a Windows style permissions problem, having a Linux program
access the info stored on a Windows NTFS or FAT32 partition.

This is an example of a command, run in a terminal, for
recursively listing permissions. This is how I'd figure out the permission
flags.

ls -algtR insert_path_info_here

Just going by memory, if I was in Ubuntu, the permissions on any
(Windows partition) file examined would be 600, which is rw. ... ... and
allows the user named "Ubuntu" to access the file in either a read or
a write mode. In that case, the permissions are "faked", and don't represent
any property extracted from the foreign file system itself. The 600
value is just "assigned" to each file so that Linux programs
will have something to work with. Whereas, Linux reading a native
Linux file system, all the permissions are fully working.

It would require feeding the Linux "mount" command, some optional
parameters, to shoot yourself in the foot. For example, you could
mount the Windows partition "read-only", rendering it impossible
for Seamonkey to use the folder at runtime. (It couldn't update
the cache folder, say.)

It's been threatened, that some day, the Linux file system would
fully honor all aspects of Windows permissions. And that would be
a sad day indeed (there's hardly be a reason to boot Linux any
more - I use Linux more for bypassing Windows permissions,
than anything else).

The profile for Seamonkey or Firefox (profile.ini and friends), should
not need to be moved. It can be hosted on the Windows partition,
and then it will be accessible from either a Linux OS, or
from Windows. Of course, you could always modify the Windows
permissions such that you can't access your own files. It could
happen...

*******

This is the contents of my Seamonkey profiles.ini :

------------------------------------
[General]
StartWithLastProfile=1

[Profile0]
Name=default
IsRelative=1
Path=Profiles/3wgzunft.default
------------------------------------

The magic part there, is the "IsRelative" flag. It would
be relative to the current working directory.

Now, if I was in Linux, there was a profile.ini in
the Linux file system, I would be editing that
with the mount point of the Windows stuff. In other
words, I need to edit the Linux version of profile.ini,
stored in its particular place, to point to the Windows
Profile folder, so there will be interworking. I haven't
tested this, but suspect I'd need to add the double quotes,
in order for "space" characters to not cause a problem.

IsRelative=0
Path="/media/WINXP/Documents and Settings/username/Application Data/Mozilla/SeaMonkey/Profiles/3wgzunft.default"

Using the Profile Manager, should take some of the
pain out of this exercise. After which, you could
exit Seamonkey, then go take a look at how it
edited the path. This doc covers aspects of
Firefox, Thunderbird, or Seamonkey. Using the
Profile Manager, should give a GUI means of
doing the selection of the folder.

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_Manager#Linux

HTH,
Paul

Probably should address to the original poster.

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

How big is your Seamonkey profile? Have you pruned its temporary and
cache files?

This should be addressed to the OP...

Has that been changed, then? Moving stuff *on the same drive* in Windows
always used to be a case of just changing the FAT or MFT to match the
new location. That's why I can "move" a 4 Gigabyte file from D:\Movies
to D:\Temp in a couple of seconds. Moving it to C:\Movies takes quite a
while, though, as it is physically moved by the copy and delete sequence
you mention, so you're right in that case.

The OP had moved his profile to a different drive, so I didn't address
the question of same-drive moves in hopes of keeping my remarks directly
relevant

 

[Paul]

Probably should address to the original poster.

Linux treats Windows partitions, differently than you
might expect.

Paul

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

Linux treats Windows partitions, differently than you
might expect.

Paul

I don't use Linux, and I have no knowledge of how it treats Windows file
systems. As a result, I can only offer the OP generic suggestions
(approaches to solutions) and no details.

If you have useful knowledge, feel free to pass it along to Daniel47. It
would help him more than I can.