It installed thunderbird. I have since done the stuff to delete it. I am using a 1tb ssd disc which holds the startup disc from startup disc creator. I now see that the major paritition is being used as holding “filesystem root”. This is a particularly place where I would prefer not to have some stuff, like thunderbird. I have a 4tb hard drive in this system and I would prefer to have it there so I can deal with it if there is a problem. I have, for instance, a thunderbird file that I will need to set it up if I ever get in on and I suspect sending another file into the filesystem root might be a problem. Anyway, I want to install thunderbird but put it on the 4tb drive and have no idea how to do that.
The program will be in / (root) as is all programs.
This is only for the .deb type install. Does not apply to snap type installs.
But all user data is in /home as default as a hidden file .thunderbird.
Do you have /home inside / or as separate partition?
Or do you have /home inside / and a large data partition linked into your / or /home?
I have used data partition(s) from my first use. I originally had both Firefox & Thunderbird profiles in a shares NTFS data partition with XP. Changed to Linux format when I deleted XP and keep profiles in data partition mounted in my main working install but also in my test installs. Firefox stopped easily letting me use same profile, but Thunderbird still works.
I originally copied profile to its own folder in my data partition and edited profiles.ini & install.ini to my profile and location.
My first thought is: why would I install a security-exposed app using a less secure method that isn’t designed to handle this kind of thing? I suggest using the official Ubuntu Snap instead.
Software is best kept in the root partition on the SSD for reasons of performance, considering that software does not take that much disk space, and considering that the system directories are managed only by dedicated system tools (apt, snap). Thus, there is no good reason to want to install the thunderbird application elsewhere, in this case a slower conventional drive.
Apart from the system files of the actual application, managed by system tools, there also is the user configuration data in your home directory, under a ~/.thunderbird directory for a .deb installation, or under ~/snap for a snap installation. These files are written once you start the application for the first time. You have full read and write access as a user to these files, and that configuration data never will be automatically removed.
If despite of these arguments you continue to feel an urgent need to move the thunderbird installation, symbolic links will be all you need to move files around and keep the application working.
Hi,
non sandboxed (like in docker containers or as snap) software is installed in directories dedicated to store executables in the lfs (linux file system) hierarchy, i.e. /usr/bin/, /usr/sbin/, /usr/local/bin/, /usr/local/sbin/. These directories are assigned to the PATH variable in the various shell profiles which is used to find and then start the software when called in a shell. The program data are stored in different places (e.g. general configurations in /etc/, general and some individual data in /var/, user data usually in the users home directory.
You can change the locations. In this case you have to alter the packages, if you use deb-packages or you can move installed programs to another directory and link them to the original location or augment the PATH variable to the new location facing issues if libraries are accessed using relative paths.
Therefore it is best practice to leave the installation paths as they are.
Now I want to capture this thread since Thunderbird and Firefox are special cases. These are standard components of Ubuntu desktop and will be installed with any new installation or release upgrade. And they are installed with (and in) snap. Since snap programs are sandboxed some of the user data are stored in the local ~/snap/ directory
So if you have them installed from deb packages before and do a release update then they will be freshly installed as snap. Using non sandboxed versions is necessary if you use plugins which need access to non standard locations (e.g. automatically save attachments to the respective Documents or Pictures directories). You can find mozilla deb packages at ppa:mozillateam/ppa
If you (automatically) start Thunderbird (when you log in) then these date, most annoying the Mail Local Folders, will be moved to the ~/snap/ directory. And if you reinstall Thunderbird from deb packages, the corresponding local snap directory and its content will be deleted, the Local Folders are gone.
I posted this one quite a long time ago. Since then things have, pretty much changed. This being the case the question no longer makes sense. I am, right now, running with snap thunderbird and its working.
I really do appreciate the replies and apologize for not replying quicker.