Ubuntu
firefox-3.0 package

How To: Grant permissions to myself

Asked by zebsdad

I have my old firefox profile on an external hard drive. I want to replace the default profile in etc/firefox-3.0 with the old profile.

I tried to drag and drop from one window to the other and it says I don't have permission because root is the owner.

How do I get 'er done?

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Ubuntu firefox-3.0 Edit question
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actionparsnip
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zebsdad (zebsdad) said : 		#1

Ubuntu 8.10. A very basic answer please. I have been on Linux all of two weeks....

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Best actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said : 		#2

if the external drive is mounted as root readable only then you will need to use:

gksudo nautilus

you can then copy it off the usb and onto your home directory, then close nautilus. You will then need to chown it to your username.

sudo chown -R $USER /path/to/firefoxfolder

you will need to change the path so that the data is changed from root to your username ($USER manages this for you)

you will need to run:

cd ~/.mozilla/firefox

andy@fileserver:~/.mozilla/firefox$ ls
7jc6ywp1.default Crash Reports profiles.ini

and you will see <random numeric gibberish>.default

you need to replace that folder with the one off the usb which you copied earlier.

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Antonio Sánchez (antoniosanchez) said : 		#3

In a terminal (Applications > Accesories > Terminal) you can copy archives as user with privileges.

sudo cp /path/to/old/profile/ /full/destination/path

if you want to copy an entire directory add -r option

sudo cp -r /path/to/old/profile/ /full/destination/path/

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actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said : 		#4

If you use antonio's solution, you will still need to chown the folder.

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zebsdad (zebsdad) said : 		#5

In gksudo nautilus I copied my old profile to my home dir.

Went to /.mozilla/firefox and noted jibberish and went to home dir and renamed old profile and drug it to .mozilla/firefox and dropped it. I merged and rebooted and it works just like I wanted.

Thanks, I had done this before but couldn't remember some of it.