Upgrade StorageShared database (was Confidentiality?)
Hi @dstillman and @emilianoeheyns
I've started a new thread, it was getting a bit off the way I'd ended up hijacking @Caitdv's thread.
Following dstillman's advice I've sorted myself out a 250 GB USB 3.0 drive and reformatted it as vFAT32. First problem is that FAT under Linux assigns all files to the mounter of the drive, and you can't chown or chmod in the usual way. Surprise, surprise, I'm not allowed to modify a directory owned by root (phew!). I did consider setting the disk up with options noauto,user which does allow me to mount it myself.
I copied over the whole of the zotero directory and created a new profile which started up, but still said that the path was back to the original directory. I'm also a bit concerned on several fronts:
1) Instinctively I don't like noauto,user. It can cause no end of problems if you forget to mount it, or another user in the group tries to access it.
2) Having disks which are not permanently attached is bad policy for backups.
3) FAT is a pain to backup, none of the standard dumps work with it. I know that you can use cpio or tar with a date stamp file to get incrementals, but it's more scripting.
I've also realised that there could be an issue specifying paths; I've already seen it looking in the wrong place on the server, goodness only knows what Windows would make of /Zotero/books/zotero as a path! Unfortunately the laptop has to stay on Windows for the wife's benefit, she'd not be happy if I upgraded it to Linux.
I'm sure this is all doable, I'm just not convinced that is makes sense in the limited context in which I'm working. I'll probably stick with using export and import to update the master copy in a controlled manner.
Thanks for your advice and help earlier today.
Martin
I've started a new thread, it was getting a bit off the way I'd ended up hijacking @Caitdv's thread.
Following dstillman's advice I've sorted myself out a 250 GB USB 3.0 drive and reformatted it as vFAT32. First problem is that FAT under Linux assigns all files to the mounter of the drive, and you can't chown or chmod in the usual way. Surprise, surprise, I'm not allowed to modify a directory owned by root (phew!). I did consider setting the disk up with options noauto,user which does allow me to mount it myself.
I copied over the whole of the zotero directory and created a new profile which started up, but still said that the path was back to the original directory. I'm also a bit concerned on several fronts:
1) Instinctively I don't like noauto,user. It can cause no end of problems if you forget to mount it, or another user in the group tries to access it.
2) Having disks which are not permanently attached is bad policy for backups.
3) FAT is a pain to backup, none of the standard dumps work with it. I know that you can use cpio or tar with a date stamp file to get incrementals, but it's more scripting.
I've also realised that there could be an issue specifying paths; I've already seen it looking in the wrong place on the server, goodness only knows what Windows would make of /Zotero/books/zotero as a path! Unfortunately the laptop has to stay on Windows for the wife's benefit, she'd not be happy if I upgraded it to Linux.
I'm sure this is all doable, I'm just not convinced that is makes sense in the limited context in which I'm working. I'll probably stick with using export and import to update the master copy in a controlled manner.
Thanks for your advice and help earlier today.
Martin
In terms of Zotero, this is really as simple as either 1) pointing Zotero at the same data directory on an external drive from two computers or 2) moving a folder to and from an external drive before/after using Zotero.
There's no reason to be using export/import if you're already moving files between computers.
As I said, thanks for your advice and support.