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Saturday, May 5, 2007

Installing Mozilla Thunderbird in Ubuntu 7.04 Feisty Fawn

This works for anyone running Ubuntu 7.04 Feisty Fawn, not just for Dell Inspiron 1501 users.

Evolution is a good email client, I've been using it for four months now and don't have any real complaints. But Thunderbird 2 is hands down the best email client I have ever used and it's incredibility easy to install.

Mozilla Thunderbird is a free, cross-platform e-mail and news client developed by the Mozilla Foundation. The project strategy is modelled after Mozilla Firefox. Just as Firefox aims to redefine the web browser, Thunderbird is a refinement of the mail and news interface.
To learn more check out the Wiki or Mozilla's Thunderbird Page

Download Mozilla Thunderbird 2:
wget -c http://releases.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/thunderbird/releases/2.0.0.0/linux-i686/en-US/thunderbird-2.0.0.0.tar.gz

Extract it:
sudo tar -C /opt -zxvf thunderbird-2.0.0.0.tar.gz

Make a launcher command available to all users:
first:
sudo dpkg-divert --divert /usr/bin/mozilla-thunderbird.ubuntu --rename /usr/bin/mozilla-thunderbird
second:
sudo ln -s /opt/thunderbird/thunderbird /usr/bin/mozilla-thunderbird
third:
sudo ln -s /opt/thunderbird/thunderbird /usr/bin/thunderbird

Now you can launch Thunderbird with the command:
thunderbird

Now we will make a launcher for Thunderbird
1. Right click the Application Places System menu bar
2. Select edit menus
3. Scroll down to Internet
4. Select new item (upper right hand corner of window)
5. Fill in the boxes you can put whatever you want in, only command matters
Type: Application
Name: Mozilla Thunderbird
Command: thunderbird
Comment: Email Client
6. Select an icon, or you can use this one here.

Enjoy, Thunderbird automatically configures Gmail. if you need to configure another email service check out the Mozilla Thunderbird F.A.Q.
edited by pHreaksYcle

12 comments:

hawk said...

You say you've been using it for 'four moths' now? Interesting.

Just teasing of course. =)

Kevin said...

good to hear that evolution isn't too shabby, but yeah, i installed thunderbird 2.0 without ever having tried evolution....it's just too good to be without; i use it for my gmail and RSS feeds. it's not the BEST at managing RSS feeds, but it's not terrible, and I'm a bit of a minimalist, so I like to strike a balance between program size, functionality, and versatility....if a program is kickass at doing one particular task, that's a major plus, but if another program is kickass at many things, and handles that one thing well enough, well, it wins

chancho said...

what's wrong with
sudo apt-get install mozilla-thunderbird
?

redDEAD said...

chancho is right i forgot to mention that Thunderbird from the repos is version 1.5, not 2.0. While 1.5 is a rock solid, 2.0 brings some big changes and fixes. If you want to use a great email client without the hassle use:

sudo apt-get install mozilla-thunderbird
for Thunderbird 1.5

Frank Dai said...

Hi, Can you tell me how can I switch back to TB 1.5?

i.e. When type thunderbird command Tb 1.5 instead of Tb 2.0 will be prompted. (and Tb 1.5 was installed from repositories)

Unknown said...

For me the "Big" difference between Thunderbird and Evolution is that with Thunderbird I can use the same software on Windows and Linux, and have only one copy of may mail in my HDD.

(I didn't find an Evolution for Windows)

redDEAD said...

you won't evolution is a one of those linux only gtk programs

timseal said...

If you google for evolution windows, you will see a few places to try.

fulcy said...

Alright - new Ubuntu user here, so be nice ;) - never used Linux before, though I did use Unix about 10 years ago for work - trying to ween myself from the microsoft teet. I just installed Feisty Fawn 64 bit on my 1501, and have run into a couple problems - like this one:

I followed the directions for installing Thunderbird, but when I type in the 'thunderbird' command, it comes back with:

/opt/thunderbird/run-mozilla.sh: 424: /opt/thunderbird/thunderbird-bin: not found

Did I forget to type something (I copied and pasted the instructions step by step), or could it be a conflict because I installed the 64 bit Feisty Fawn?

redDEAD said...

yeah buddy try doing it again, if you did everything correctly then it might be the 64 bit version

fulcy said...

Actually, that was exactly it. I nuked the 64 bit install, and installed the 32 bit Feisty, and it fixed all the problems (with Thunderbird and Beryl). Thanks for the great blog!

Unknown said...

Just want to congratulate you for a fantastic blog. Because of it I'm now dual booting Windows and Ubuntu with everything working so far!

I just want to point out two minor details about this particular entry:

1) Exactly the same can be done for Sunbird, the Mozilla Calendar program. I found Lightning 0.5 was having difficulty on Ubuntu, but Sunbird is just as good really. Obviously in the instructions, replace "mozilla-thunderbird" with "mozilla-sunbird", etc.

2) The icons can be found (for Thunderbird and Sunbird) in a folder called "Icons" in their directory, with all their proper transparencies! I hunted for a while for a decent Sunbird one only to find they came with some anyway, dooh!!

Anyway, please keep this blog up. It's amazing!

Col