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The -installer command line option and migrating multiple profiles on UNIX

sspitzer@mozilla.org

The -installer command line option on UNIX

As of 9-15-99, the -installer option works on UNIX. Currently, it migrates mail & news, cookies and preferences from 4.x

Here's how to use it:

$ ./mozilla -installer

It uses $USER for your "4.x profile name" and $HOME/.netscape for your "4.x profile root"

Select the $USER profile, and hit start. That's it.

When you are done, you'll see that ~/.netscape got migrated to ~/.mozilla/$USER

Migrating Multiple Profiles on UNIX

For you power users....
In 4.x, we didn't have multiple profiles on UNIX. You could get around this by changing the $HOME environment variable.

As of 9-15-99, you can to migrate several 4.x "profiles" into 5.0. If you used multiple $HOME directories to achieve multiple profiles on UNIX in 4.x, you can migrate all of them to 5.0, and use the new profile manager to switch between them.

Here's how to do that:

Set $PROFILE_NAME and $PROFILE_HOME before running installer, if you want to point to a "profile" other than $USER,$HOME/.netscape

make sure you set $PROFILE_NAME is something other than $USER, and different than any other $PROFILE_NAME values that you've used in the past.
If you don't do this, you'll stomp on your old profile directory: ~/.mozilla/<profile>

Example of how to migrate /home/sspitzer/.netscape, /home/sspitzer/foo/.netscape, and and /home/sspitzer/bar/.netscape into ~/.mozilla/sspitzer, ~/.mozilla/foo, ~/.mozilla/bar
(This example assumes $USER is sspitzer and $HOME is /home/sspitzer)

run it once, to migrate my default "profile"
$ ./mozilla -installer
set the following environment variables: $PROFILE_NAME and $PROFILE_HOME
$ setenv PROFILE_NAME foo
$ setenv PROFILE_HOME /home/sspitzer/foo
run it again
$ ./mozilla -installer
$ setenv PROFILE_NAME bar
$ setenv PROFILE_HOME /home/sspitzer/bar
run it again
$ ./mozilla -installer