I must have missed something. I loaded a fresh copy of Linux Mint Cinnamon on an external USB disk drive, on a laptop, which seems to be running OK. I tried to copy the .thunderbird folder from the Linux setup on the laptop internal drive, where Thunderbird was working just fine, but when I access Thunderbird when booting from the external USB drive it wants me to go through the setup steps. What am I not doing correctly? Do I need to us a command in terminal mode that doesn't work on copy/paste? It put the copy in the .home folder as a "copy". Thanks.
make my Linux Portable....
- Thread starter Condobloke
- Start date
I must have missed something. I loaded a fresh copy of Linux Mint Cinnamon on an external USB disk drive, on a laptop, which seems to be running OK. I tried to copy the .thunderbird folder from the Linux setup on the laptop internal drive, where Thunderbird was working just fine, but when I access Thunderbird when booting from the external USB drive it wants me to go through the setup steps. What am I not doing correctly? Do I need to us a command in terminal mode that doesn't work on copy/paste? It put the copy in the .home folder as a "copy". Thanks.
In your new Thunderbird (on the USB)... run it first and choose something like, "I'll manually setup later." This creates the hidden .thunderbird folder. After that, copy your good working copy of .thunderbird over to the USB... paste it into /home/user ("user" may be your name or something generic if using a Live USB). If this process is making a copy of the folder, then you'll need to copy the contents inside and paste them into the new .thunderbird.
When you run Thunderbird the first time after copying the contents, it will still prompt you to make Thunderbird the default program for email and RSS, but after that there is no more setup required and your good working copy should be running now. All your email and ISP server settings should be working.
If using a Live USB without persistence, this will still work but it will not be saved between reboots. If you are using persistence and have all of your email accounts configured for IMAP, I think that you can keep your USB synchronized with your regular full-time Thunderbird, but I don't use IMAP. What I do after setting up the USB is to change the server settings on all my email accounts to "leave mail on server"... so when I'm traveling with the USB I can download all my mail, but when I get home it will all download again to my desktop. This method doesn't save any replies I make while traveling, though, so if I make a reply that I think I really need to keep, I will CC or BCC myself so that it will also download when I return home.
Hope that makes sense.
Cheers
OP
Condobloke
Well-Known Member
I am now back in Australia, and sitting at my pc in the safety and comfort of my own home, in Glen Innes NSW
If I was going to do this again (which I have no intention of doing,....ever)...I would load up a USB stick and save a Timehsift snapshot of the Linux Mint, to a portable external hard drive.....(1TB measuring around 125mm x 100mm.)
Take the pair with me in a suitably padded carry case.....all I need then is a pc which has USB ports. Simple.
If I was going to do this again (which I have no intention of doing,....ever)...I would load up a USB stick and save a Timehsift snapshot of the Linux Mint, to a portable external hard drive.....(1TB measuring around 125mm x 100mm.)
Take the pair with me in a suitably padded carry case.....all I need then is a pc which has USB ports. Simple.
