[ale] firefox profile directory

[Dow_Hurst]

I tested $MOZ_PROFILE in opensuse 10.3.  The executable is fed the new variable value correctly from the firefox.sh script, but just creates a ~/.mozilla/firefox directory anyway.  The firefox.sh script in opensuse 10.3 sets up MOZ_PROFILE and MOZ_USER_DIR.  In fact, with "#!/bin/sh -x" set in the script I could see the values carried all the way thru the entire execution of the script.  However, as soon as the binary is called, there must be a hidden algorithm that takes over.  An new ~/.mozilla/firefox directory is created, a new empty profile is created, and then that profile is filled with default values.

So, since multiple profiles require that a user pick the right profile every time, depending on which machine they are logged into and which version firefox is installed, I can definitely say that won't work!  We know that users will do the wrong thing a lot, even when they are trying to do the right thing.  So, installing the same version of firefox on all machines using the same home directory is the only solution that is robust.  I would probably forget and pick the wrong profile and screw up my settings.  I can only imagine what some users would do and not really even understand what happened.  This is hopefully a pretty temporary setup as we are doing our best to get moved to ubuntu 8.04 as quickly as we can.  We just have a lot of testing to do before we get rid of the other distributions.  I wish firefox was a little more configurable but I bet this would require recompiling since it isn't really available thru the startup script.  We have enough workstations (26) that a corporate setup would be preferred with all the workstations just alike.  We will get there eventually.
Thanks for the suggestions and help!
Dow


-----Original Message-----
>From: William Witt <william at witt-family.net>
>Sent: Jul 4, 2008 3:29 PM
>To: Dow_Hurst <Dow.Hurst at mindspring.com>, ale at ale.org
>Subject: Re: [ale] firefox profile directory
>
>the firefox executable is a shell script.  I haven tested it but, one of 
>the lines sets $MOZDIR variable to $HOME/.mozilla.  Perhaps this is 
>what you are looking for.
>
>Will
>
>On Friday 04 July 2008 14:40:59 Dow_Hurst wrote:
>> Brian,
>> I don't see how I can pass that easily without modifying every user's
>> Firefox startup string for the menu entries and icons per machine.  I 
>think
>> getting all the distro's standardized on a single version of firefox 
>would
>> actually be easier than trying to use different profiles.  Firefox sure 
>is
>> restrictive about this behaviour!  I would think larger installations of
>> Linux in heterogenous environments would have to solve this 
>somehow.  Oh
>> well. Dow
>>
>> >Let firefox use mozilla, but change the profile locations in
>> >~/.mozilla/firefox/profiles.ini
>> >
>> >http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profiles.ini_file
>> >
>> >-Brian
>> >
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