The Thunderbird websitre is totally devoid of proper installation instructions for Thuderbird, on Linux, this is what I did

1. Download Thunderbird
2. su root
3. gunzip it
4. tar -xvf it
5. Copy the expanded dir to something more sensible (/opt/thunderbird)
Now I can cd /opt/Thunderbird and run it as root but how do I run it as a normal user, I couldnt
install it as a normal user because of permission problems.

Also I have a dual boot machine so i want to share my email between Linux and Windows.
On Windows
1. I created a new profile on windows in a location accessible to Linux
2. Copied my mailboxes to new profile
3. Edited paths in prefs.js, Windows working ok with moved profile

On Linux
0. Started Thunderbird and created profile
1. Went to .thunderbird/vamower.default
2. Copied Windows/prefs.js to there
3. Edited paths to unix representation i.e D: -> /data
4. Started Thunderbird
My email accounts have been created correctly but I dont have any of my emails. Am I doing this right, is it possible to have your email folders (data/shared/email) in a different location to your email profile (/root/.thunderbird/....)

this is what i found for installing it in FC2. It should work on every distr.

Thunderbird:

Follow the instructions at http://fedoranews.org/krishnan/tutor...rd/index.shtml
and http://www.mozilla.org/projects/thun...linuxurls.html Then go to http://downloads.mozdev.org/mozex/mozex-1.07.xpi and install the Mozex extension. Then open "Preferences" > "Preferred Applications" in Gnome and in the "Web Browser" tab select "Custom Web Browser". In the box type "/usr/lib/firefox/firefox %s" (without the quotes), then select the "Mail Reader" tab, select "Custom Mail Reader" and in the box type "/opt/thunderbird/thunderbird %s" (without the quotes). Close and restart Firefox.

If you want to run it as your normal user, you're either going to have to adjust some permissions or install it into another location.

I personally installed thunderbird in my home folder and then put a link to the executable file in the /usr/local/bin folder so that I could run it by simply typing "thunderbird". if you want to run it under the folder you have right now you'll have to change permissions so that you have read and execute access.

As for getting it to come up in windows and linux, I won't be able to help you there.

This is how I installed (Firefox 1.0 & Thunderbird 0.8) on my system:

1. I installed Thunderbird in /usr/local/thunderbird (Doesn't really matter where)
2. Created a symbolic link of the thunderbird executable in my /usr/local/bin
example: ln -s /usr/local/thunderbird/thunderbird /usr/local/bin/thunderbird
3. Now you should be able to run thunderbird as NORMAL user.

As for sharing your data between windows and linux, I would do the following. Once you have started thunderbird as
your normal login, it will create the .thunderbird/xxxdefault directory. In that directory, there should be a Mail folder. This is where your mail is stored locally. I would then delete or rename the localhost directory and then create a symbolic link to your shared windows Mail/localhost directory to here called localhost .

example: ln -s /data/shared/email/.../Mail/localhost ~/.thunderbird/xxdefault/Mail/localhost

That should work, as long as you have permissions to write to your shared directory as NORMAL user.

crimsen

Hi there. If you download Thunderbird from mozilla site

http://download.mozilla.org/?product...nux&lang=en-US
Then no need to install it. Just unpack and run "thunderbird"

Can you explain with unpack? did you mean extract?? I clicked your link and get thunderbird downloaded good, then extract it and click it.. but nothing happened?? Did I miss something?