Debian Thunderbird
FAQ
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Debian ThunderbirdFAQ |
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There are two resources from where to get the thunderbird mail client for debian:
Simply install the mozilla-thunderbird package from the official debian apt repositories. If you are a sarge/sid user, simply use:
# apt-get install mozilla-thunderbird
If you always want to get the latest you can give a try to the releases install in the apt repository at mentors. See the INSTALL on howto install the latest thunderbird in order to get my latest builds.
I do not maintain the thunderbird packages for woody. Nevertheless backports for thunderbird and enigmail are available from backports.org. Usually you need to add the following line in your /etc/apt/sources.list file:
deb http://www.backports.org/debian stable mozilla-thunderbirdThis line is sufficient to install the debian thunderbird with:
# apt-get update # apt-get install mozilla-thunderbirdNote: You do not need to fear that you will get other backported packages during a regular update if you keep the backports line in your sources.list. In this way you will get updates for mozilla-thunderbird as soon as they get backported.
I do provide those unofficial packages for two major reasons:
Woody is the last stable release of the Debian GNU/Linux Distribution. Since Debians policy tries to provide a really stable Distribution, usually no new packages enter the stable Distribution once it was released. Therefore Thunderbird is not in woody & will likely never be.
If you encounter some strange effects like segfaults
after upgrading or simply some extensions not working
as expected, try to do the following variants to recover:
First: Always backup your .mozilla-thunderbird directory (e.g. cp -rf /home/username/.mozilla-thunderbird /home/username/.mozilla-thunderbird.sav)!
If this does not help try
Debian provides a way to install and deinstall debian thunderbird
extensions as you like. Since this feature is currently not available
for arbitrary extensions in thunderbird, we have to provide a way
to do this on our own. To achieve this, without applying massive
changes to the thunderbird code base won't be possible.
Thus, we implemented a mechanism outside of
thunderbird to track extensions currently installed.
Of course this mechanism cannot be aware
of extensions not installed through the debian package
management and thus it is not
reinstalled the next time the extensions are reconfigured.
To conclude: Anytime you install/upgrade/deinstall
mozilla-thunderbird or any extension through the debian
package management system, all manually installed extensions get
lost. Extensions not globally installed are not affected
by this procedure. In contrast, users are able to install
.xpi extensions as long as they don't need root privileges.
Nevertheless outdating of extensions installed by a user is still
likely, if a new official release of thunderbird arrives.
So reinstall your .xpi extension if that happened.
To get a list of available extension packages see the EXTENSIONS section.
Yes. Go to the EXTENSIONS section to see what languages are already available as debian packages & how to install them. If there is any language you would like to be packaged, please leave tell me where to get the .xpi package. I will try to add it ASAP!
Simply add the following line to your prefs.js file inside the $HOME/.mozilla-thunderbird/default/lk123.123/ folder:
user_pref("widget.gtk2.dnd.threshold", 15);
The treshold is the number of pixel a mouse must move before
a drag starts.
Examples of additional available settings are listed below:
user_pref("widget.gtk2.double_click_timeout", 100);
in the double_click_timeout example, the 100
specifies the maximum time-gap for a double click in milliseconds.
'mozilla-firefox %s'Note: the current Preferred Applications Dialog won't set the https handler properly. Thus you will need to do the HTTPS part of the 2nd solution below to get https support as well.
==> HTTP <==
#> gconftool-2 --type string --set '/desktop/gnome/url-handlers/http/command' 'mozilla-firefox %s'
#> gconftool-2 --type bool --set '/desktop/gnome/url-handlers/http/enabled' 'true'
==> HTTPS <==
#> gconftool-2 --type string --set '/desktop/gnome/url-handlers/https/command' 'mozilla-firefox %s'
#> gconftool-2 --type bool --set '/desktop/gnome/url-handlers/https/enabled' 'true'
user_pref("network.protocol-handler.app.http","mozilla-firefox");
user_pref("network.protocol-handler.app.https","mozilla-firefox");
For system wide settings, place the following lines
in your system-wide settings file
[/etc/mozilla-thunderbird/global-config.js]:
pref("network.protocol-handler.app.http","mozilla-firefox");
pref("network.protocol-handler.app.https","mozilla-firefox");
Since mozilla-thunderbird 0.6 there is a single global configuration file available:
/etc/mozilla-thunderbird/global-config.jsThere are some sample configurations available in this file.
Help on Debian unspecific issues of the thunderbird mail client is available on the Thunderbird Help Page. The official forum is hosted by mozillazine forums.
Have more Questions? Simply drop me a mail! I will add it to the FAQ if it is indeed frequently asked.