upgrade from Firefox 3.0 to Firefox 3.5

[Polytropon]

On Fri, 17 Jul 2009 18:07:36 -0600, Chad Perrin <perrin at apotheon.com> wrote:
> On Sat, Jul 18, 2009 at 01:43:47AM +0200, Polytropon wrote:
> > On Fri, 17 Jul 2009 16:48:37 -0600, Chad Perrin <perrin at apotheon.com> wrote:
> > > So . . . how do I upgrade Firefox from 3.0 to 3.5 without running the
> > > risk of losing everything (bookmarks, a 100-tab session, et cetera)? 
> > 
> > Well, I don't think those settings get altered in any way - they do not
> > reside in the port's directories (where it will be installed into).
> > To be sure, make a backup copy of your ~/.mozilla/ directory before.
> 
> Does that cover both bookmarks *and* my tab session?

I think so. Because a !root user cannot write to Firefox's directories
(inside the /usr/local/ subtree), data local to the user will be stored
in his home directory. The correct path is ~/.mozilla/firefox and maybe
~/.mozilla/default.

I can at least confirm it for the bookmarks. I haven't checked for
tab sessions because I'm not using that feature.

But just judging from a conceptual point of view: WHY NOT? :-)



> > > For
> > > some reason, it seems that the upgrade has to be made by deleting 3.0 and
> > > installing 3.5 afterward.  What's up with that?
> > 
> > No idea. Anyway, user's files won't be touched.
> 
> Do you know this from personal experience, or are you just assuming that
> I won't pull out all my hair five seconds after I discover it deleted a
> bunch of shit I wanted to keep?

As I said, I can confirm it for bookmarks in Firefox. It's a similar
thing with Thunderbird's mailboxes.

The rest is just deduction from UNIX principles, formed into a kind
of counter-question: Why (and how) should user data be saved within
the application's directory structures?

The update process will ONLY have effect on the files installed by the
port. Are your user files mentioned in the corresponding control files
of the port? Surely not - how could they? The port will only delete
those files that are list as have been installed by the port, nothing
more, nothing less.


-- 
Polytropon
>From Magdeburg, Germany
Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0
Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...