[solved] migrating to linux - question from a windows user

[Nettkrawler]

Hi all.

Have some old computers laying around (still fully working). All of those are from the xp era, and it's obviously beyond time to get rid of xp. I've already installed Mint at one old computer - runs well, but it raise some question.

1. Where are profile folder and where - in which directory - goes temporary files. Is this location different between linux distroes?

2. Multiple profiles
When using Windows, I really never had any issues about this because I ran a portable version of Firefox from an encrypted folder. Therefore I always had one version of Firefox to browse newspapers/download apps - and the other one to pay bills and other things where personal password was remembered on in user profile.

With Linux, the portable apps solution is out of the question. Therefore I have this practical question: I want one profile for everything, and one password protected profile. How can i accomplish this - running Linux Mint?

3. Bookmarks - stored locally
I intend to migrate bookmarks only to keep the password protected profile as clean as possible. Is there anything I should be aware of? Anything that might not work when importing a bookmark database that origins from Firefox on Windows?

Thanks in advance

[kreemoweet]

In most Linux distributions, your user/personal files are located in the /home/<username> directory. Firefox (and other Mozilla applications) will by default put your user profile
files in a /home/<username/.mozilla folder. Cache files go in the /home/<username>/.cache/mozilla folder. I've never seen FF make any "temporary" files, but it it did
it would likely go in a /var/tmp/<username>/mozilla directory or something similar.

I don't know why you say portable apps won't work in Linux: you can put your executables anywhere you want, and you can likewise tell Firefox to create your profile
folder anywhere. You can also have multiple profiles running different versions of FF.

Can't say anything about encryption, as I've never had any use for such a thing. That would be Linux software question, and not really relevant to Firefox, unless there exists
a Firefox extension that would maintain an encrypted user profile.

FF is multi-platform and bookmarks on Windows are in the same format as on Linux, so there's no apparent reason for any difficulty transferring them. Usually, it just involves a simple
file transfer. Nevertheless, failures of BM importing are reported here from time to time, mostly for no discernable reason. You might want to export your BM's in various formats just in case.

[Nettkrawler]

Ok - I assume that cache is exactly the same as tmp/var when it comes to files on a disk, but if there is a difference between definition of temp/var and cache I'll like to be enlighten. That is of course the cache directory I was asking for.

[kreemoweet]

There's nothing "temporary" about FF's cache files. They have nothing to do with the Linux OS facilities in either the /tmp or the /var/tmp directories. FF's cache is per-user-profile and is kept
in the Linux user personal space. Presumably, FF has a cleanup routine that periodically evicts expired files or simply older files if the space alloted for cache files requires it, or the user can manually
clear those files.

[Grumpus]

To clarify location a little; for Mint the cache would be in /home/username/cache/Mozilla/Firefox/profileID/cache2 with a couple of folder underneath.
One called doomed would be uncleared finals (left overs from sites visited but not having used the Clear Recent History under History in the menu bar.
There's also a separate thumbnail folder not under Mozilla and one in the main Home tree which have several categories which are good to clear from time to time.
You can delete the "doomed" items in the Mozilla cache with no ill effects while on line if concerned.
This is similar for Fedora, Mint, Bodhi and Ubuntu - Bodhi and Mint are based on Ubuntu.

[Brummelchen]

i dont know nothing about firefox on linux - but i suggest you before migration to reset all current profiles and then to migrate. it is no problem to share profiles among several windows, but a mix up with linux will destroy profiles and make them not proper working. or this way:

Recover important files from profiles:
https://support.mozilla.org/t5/Install- ... /ta-p/1007

HTH

[therube]

Profile folder - Firefox

Using Release, ESR, Beta, Aurora, and/or Nightly together.

[Nettkrawler]

Hi.

I have made a setup with 2 separate profiles. So far I just run FF with default profile to open (no prompting - goes straight to the non-critical user profile). Whenever I want to use the critical profile (the one where site password is remembered) I just run Firefox --ProfileManager.

A normal user I assume won't be able to abuse that account, but for anyone that knows about multiple profiles I guess that is the first to try.

Anyway, I have read just a little bit of Linux basic, and when it comes to the file system it seems to be able to do so much more than Windows.
So I want to hide the profile somewhere (maybe in an encrypted file system, eg. Veracrypt) - and then assume I can mount that as an directory with equal path as the profile folder.

So that is the last part that is difficult and I don't know how to accomplish. Or maybe an addon that is suitable to encrypt an user profile, or a master password that only applies to one user profile and not the other one (but need to works with upcoming versions of FF)

[Grumpus]

You could just hide the folder and change permissions on the folder so only you can access the folder.
You can also apply this hidden consideration to the files contained in the folder.
If you create a folder using Caja (file Manager) it will automatically open the dialogue panel which should have several tabs.
One is properties and another permissions. Changing a folder name from; example: Waldo to .waldo makes it a hidden folder.
There are also three levels of permissions on one of the tabs and are editable in Caja.
You can then turn off the Show Hidden Files switch.
Even if another guest-user gained access their identity, shown not as yours, would prevent opening the hidden files.
Might be overkill to go extreme encryption.

[therube]

A master password is going to be Profile specific.
So you can have one Profile with & another Profile without.

[Nettkrawler]

Thanks - That is a good advice, therube.

Is there a command line parameter to run to get Firefox open in a specific profile?

Does a master password cause any files in the profile folder to be encrypted?


Grumpus - your advice about making profile folder hidden, by adding a dot in front of its name - would that still be transparent to the application using the contents inside the folder? I mean - is there a possibility that it doesn't work?

[flaneurb]

...
Is there a command line parameter to run to get Firefox open in a specific profile?
...

man firefox tells us that

Code: Select all

       -P profile
              Start  firefox  with  the  profile named profile. Will start the
              profile manager if a valid profile name is  not  specified.  You
              will  need  to also use -no-remote if there is already a running
              firefox instance.

You don't need to open a terminal to do that. You could set up a shortcut.

[Grumpus]

Grumpus - your advice about making profile folder hidden, by adding a dot in front of its name - would that still be transparent to the application using the contents inside the folder? I mean - is there a possibility that it doesn't work?

In a word yes but there shouldn't be any problem with it working?
You need to also look at User Identifiers

If you are the owner of the folder and it's contents what you perform with other packages should not have any issues with hidden files.
If you are concerned you can check the permissions using the file manager you have installed.
Hit (in your file manager) /Edit/Permissions/List Columns and look at the list.
Check mark permissions or any of the other columns and reading the permissions column in the file manager will provide the symbols.
You can also right click the folder and file to see the permissions in the GUI you can set them.

This wiki might help explain them File system permissions scroll down to symbolic and numerical permissions for what they look like.

One thing to note, many of the Linux programs keep a "recent" list.
If this is a concern it can usually be limited either in the packages preferences or in the packages configuration file.
configuration files are editable with admin privileges and a simple text editor and are usually located in /etc in their own folder or as a separate file under /etc

[Nettkrawler]

Thank you folks - I go for multiple profiles, and it seems to work very nice.

I haven't really being used to the concept f multiple profiles in Firefox before. Just this Easter hollyday I was in need to borrow a family members computer to use internet, and the setup was so cluttered of a ridiculous amount of bookmarks and add-ons that I just decided to make another clean profile - very clever feature of Firefox.

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