Instructions for using Mozilla as a shared browser and Email client on Windows and Linux.  A Simple How-To.


Introduction:    Mozilla is a great standards-compliant browser and is an ever-improving email client.  The great part about using Mozilla is that you can share your profile information between Linux and Windows.  This allows you to work in either OS and have the same Mozilla interface, mail, and address book.

Purpose:    This document will help you set up Mozilla to share a profile between Linux and Windows.

System:    I have a triple-partitioned hard drive.

Drive Letter    OS    File System

Drive Letter OS File System



C: Windows 2000  NTFS
E: No OS (shared data) Fat32
/  Linux Ext
        
Software:    I have installed Mozilla 1.2.1 on the Win2K and Linux (Mandrake 9.0) partitions.  Both will create a “default” profile.  This will be placed in “Documents And Settings” on Win2K and in ~/.mozilla on Linux (remember that ~/ is your home directory).  Leave these default profiles as is.

Instructions:    Create a directory on the shared data drive (E:) for your profile.  I’ll call it E:\Mozilla.  Create a new Mozilla profile in Windows using this directory [you must close all instances of Mozilla and enter the Profile Manager to add profiles.]   I’ll call my Profile “Matthew”.  Also create your email account in Windows just as you normally would.  My email account is hosted at my web-site mpeavy.com, and therefore a directory is created within Mail called mail.mpeavy.com.  Note, you may have more than one mail account within the Mail directory.

You should now have the directory E:\Mozilla\Matthew\xxxxxxxx.slt, where the x’s are some combination of numbers and letters that will be different for each profile you create.  Within the .slt directory, you should have the directories Cache, chrome, and Mail.

Now, boot into Linux (and feel good about it).  Create a new Mozilla profile, allowing the location to default.  Create a mail account using all the correct settings (i.e. server settings, user name, password, etc.)  The settings from the Windows account will NOT be applied to this account, so you must enter them correctly (again) in Linux version of Mozilla.  

After you create the mail account, within the mail client program, click on the account name in the left pane, click “View settings for this account” in the right pane, which should bring up a “settings” dialog.  Click on the “Server Settings” option, and set the “Local directory” to the Mail directory on the Fat32 data partition.  This may differ on your system.  The path on mine is: /mnt/windows/Mozilla/Matthew/xxxxxxxx.slt/Mail/mail.mpeavy.com

You must also set the Local Folders.  The procedure is the same: clock on the “Local Folders” name in the left hand pane, click on “View settings for this account” in the right pane, and set the “Local Folders” path.  It should be the same as above except the last directory should be “Local Folders” instead of your account name.  In my case I enter:
/mnt/windows/Mozilla/Matthew/xxxxxxxx.slt/Mail/Local Folders

[Note:  for me, /mnt/windows/ gets me to my Fat32 root directory, E:, with the Mozilla/Matthew/xxxxxxxx.slt/Mail being directories we just created in Windows.  This may differ on other machines.]

Now, to share bookmarks, go to your local profile in Linux (probably in ~/.mozilla) and delete the bookmarks.html file (rm bookmarks.html).  Now create a link (soft link) to the bookmarks.html file on the windows partition.  Do this by typing at the command line:

ln –s /mnt/windows/Mozilla/Matthew/xxxxxxxx.slt/bookmarks.html ~/.mozilla/bookmarks.html

Remember to adjust for directory and file names specific to your computer.

If you are not familiar with the command line, you may need to brush up on these skills.

This creates a link (or alias, or short-cut) to the file on the data partition.  Mozilla uses (what it thinks is) the Bookmarks.html file in the default Linux profile directory.  But the file just provides a link to the Fat32 drive version of the Bookmarks.html.  Now, any time you change the bookmarks file in either OS, the change will be reflected on the other OS.  And any mail that is downloaded, edited, deleted, or saved, will have had those operations performed on it the next time you boot into the other operating system (which should now decreasingly be Windows.)

You must set the “Search” and “Home” preferences in both versions of the Mozilla browser.

That’s all there is to it.  Good luck!
Matthew.


Mandatory Litigous Protection Statement (sorry, but I gotta do it):  This information is given on an "as-is" basis and no warranty is expressed or implied.  The author intends for this information to be a helpful guide, but not necessarily a step-by-step How To.  Systems and directories differ from user to user.  Please make back-ups of existing data (mail profiles, bookmarks, other important information, etc.) if you have an existing Mozilla profile(s).  Please don't blame me if this doesn't work out for you.  If something does go wrong, drop me an email and hopefully I can help you out