Linking in Linux: a real timesaver!

I recently discovered a Linux feature that had escaped my notice for nearly a decade: the use of links.

While installing a new OS (Bodhi 1.2, I think it was), I was wishing for a way to keep my data safe on a separate partition while still having easy access to it from within my new installation. I knew there must be a way. I decided to play around with linking.

First I learned the hard way. For example, if I wanted my new OS to link to my .mozilla profile on the data partition, I would first remove the new OS’s /home/les/.mozilla file, (rm /home/les/.mozilla), and then create the link like this: ln -s /home/les/.mozilla /path-to-my-existing-.mozilla-profile. When I did this, to my utter amazement, Firefox opened up on my brand new OS with all my bookmarks, history, personas, etc.! Next I tried the same with /home/les/.thunderbird, and guess what… it brought in all my mail, account setups, etc. Now I was excited!

Finally, I discovered the easy way to do this. Normally I use KDE’s Dolphin filemanager, and I set it up with the split window option like so:

I navigate the left pane to my new OS’s /home/username folder. I navigate the right pane to my /home/username folder on the partition that contains my data. Then on the left pane I delete the empty folders that I won’t be needing, for example, Documents. Then in the right pane, I select the Documents folder and drag it to the left pane. I am then given the options “Move here/Copy here/Link here.” I select “Link here,” and it creates a link to the Documents folder on my Data partition! No more waiting while thousands of documents are copied to the new OS! This has worked like a charm, and even though it exposes the lack of depth in my Linux geekiness, I just had to share it. Perhaps someone else will be spared the multiple hours of copying files that I have wasted in the last decade!

 

Fedora 10 / KDE 4.1.3 screenshot…

KDE 4.1.3 on Fedora 10

I’m “settling in” with Fedora 10 as my main distro, and learning how to operate in this “non-Debian” environment. As I mentioned previously, Yumex has been a big help. Another application I wish I had found sooner is “Autoten,” which will automatically install things like Google Earth, multimedia codecs, Nvidia drivers, etc. That would have saved me a bunch of time and frustration.

I do appreciate having a distro that includes KDE 4.1 in the repositories, which is my only dissatisfaction with Mepis 8. It seems to me that the bulk of development effort in KDE apps these days is in the KDE 4 direction, and I am glad to have made the switch.

Probably my next desktop project will be to see about porting my email back into the KDE 4 version of Kmail (from Thunderbird). KDE PIM is a well integrated mail/calendar/newsreader suite. Now I find myself wondering why I left Kmail in the first place? Hmmm… I’ll have to read back a ways in this blog… oh yeah, it was just “wanderlust.”

 

Minimize Thunderbird to System Tray in Mepis 8

edit: be sure to read Paul’s comment! His way is easier. Thanks Paul!

After having recently moved all my mail to Thunderbird from Kmail, I was dismayed to discover that Thunderbird will not “minimize to tray,” meaning that I would get no new mail notifications and no “Lightning” calendar reminders without TB being open on the desktop or minimized to the taskbar. A little Googling provided the following answer.

1. In Konsole, login as root and type the following: apt-get install alltray
2. Find Thunderbird in the KDE menu and RIGHT click on it. Select “Edit Item.”
3. The KDE Menu Editor will open. In the “Command” field, type the following: alltray -s -l thunderbird %u
4. Click the save button on the KDE Menu Editor and close it.
5. Start Thunderbird and follow the instructions that Alltray provides.
6. Enjoy!

Thanks to Techthrob for this tip!

 

Migrating Your Kmail to Thunderbird

I have decided to quit Kmail and give Thunderbird a try. I’ve been wanting to do this for ages, but the process for moving mail from Kmail to Thunderbird is rather formidable. I will attempt to document my “method,” much of which I owe to the above linked blogger, TiJaJoMa, and the rest to the creator of the below linked import addon for Thunderbird.

1 ) I installed this add-on for Thunderbird… thanks, Kaosmos! (Click the download link at the bottom of the page, then in Thunderbird you’ll have to click “Tools -> Add-ons -> Install” and then navigate to the .xpi file… on mine it landed on the desktop).

2 ) My Kmail folders were maildir format, so within Kmail I had to do this for each folder:

• For a folder named Family, I created a new folder named FamilyM or FamilyMbox or whatever. Make sure when you are creating the folder that you select the mbox format!
• move all the mail from my original folder to the new one.
• delete the old empty folder, just to avoid confusion

3 ) After all the folders were converted to mbox format I chose to leave them with the temporary name (e.g. FamilyM), so as to make them easy to identify in the next step.

4 ) I created a folder on my desktop called “TempMail.”

5 ) Using the Konqueror file manager to navigate to /home/les/.kde/share/apps/kmail/mail, I copied all the “.Whatever.directory” folders into the new TempMail directory on the desktop.

6 ) In the new TempMail directory, I deleted the “.” from the beginning of each of these folder names, so they would be visible to the importer script.

7 ) In Thunderbird, I created a new folder named Family (or Whatever) by right clicking on “Local Folders” in the folder tree, and selecting “New Folder”

8 ) Then I right-clicked on the new folder just created, selected “Import/Export,” and “import mbox file,” then “Select a directory where searching the mbox files to import.” (Italian English?)

9 ) A box opened where I had to navigate to the TempMail folder on my desktop, and select one of the “Whatever.directory” files therein, and click “Open.”

10 ) I then was asked “Do you want to import the file /home/les/Desktop/TempMail/Whatever?
I clicked “Yes!” and guess what? It worked!

11) Finally it was time to rename all the new Thunderbird folders, because the importer script adds a random 3 digit number to the folder name, to avoid the possibility of overwriting an existing mail folder.

Whew! I know this is going to be automated someday! I hope this helps someone. Let me know if it needs clarification.