neilinoz Posted February 21, 2005 Report Share Posted February 21, 2005 I'm sick of Evolution. 1.4 was good but when I updated to Mandrake 10.1 I got stuck with 2.0. It's been a disaster. It is nowhere near as usable as 1.4 and I have this really annoying problem when writing emails which is that if I make a spelling mistake and correct it straight away, my backspace key removes the second last letter I have typed first, putting the cursor between the 3rd last and the last letter typed. So I have decided to go with Thunderbird. I know Evolution is an Outlook-type and has calendar and a to do list... but the fact is that this feature of 2.0 was nowhere near as nice as 1.4. I also know that Thunderbird is an email client. So I've downloaded it and arked it. Now what? The website doesn't seem to have any instructions on what to do with it and how to place which files where. I would have loved a URPMI version, but the only one that is slated on my "Istall software" is version 0.8. Is there any URPMI link that I can go to to get Thunderbird 1.0 - one that does not require me to pay $E$E$E to get in? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tyme Posted February 21, 2005 Report Share Posted February 21, 2005 this may work. although it's intended for 10.0 - you could still give it a try. used http://rpm.pbone.net to find it, also the easy urpmi link at the top of this page can help you get more repo's for "installing software" and also http://www.rpmfind.net is good too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
solarian Posted February 21, 2005 Report Share Posted February 21, 2005 (edited) So, what's wrong with using the provided source package? Why do you need an rpm? I just placed a shortcut to home/user/software/thunderbird/thunderbird on my taskbar and I can always launch it from a terminal ./thunderbird p.s. I'm still using Thunderbird 0.7.3.. does anyone suggest an upgrade to 1.0? :/ 0.7.3 does everything for me I need.. Edited February 21, 2005 by solarian Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tyme Posted February 21, 2005 Report Share Posted February 21, 2005 a source package is a bit harder to install than an rpm. i was simply trying to save neilinoz some work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crashdamage Posted February 21, 2005 Report Share Posted February 21, 2005 So, what's wrong with using the provided source package? Why do you need an rpm? One thing I learned the hard way foolin' with Linux is it's always best to install a package designed for your system i.e. rpms for rpm-based distros, .deb for Debian-based, etc. Problem is, if you install from source the package manager has no knowledge of what was installed. Apt, urpmi, whatever, can only properly keep track of and resolve dependencies and conflicts with what it knows about. So stuff installed from source (unknown to urpmi) can cause problems later with upgrades, installation of other software, etc. Chances are it won't, but it can, so why risk it if a package is available that will let urpmi do it's job? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DragonMage Posted February 21, 2005 Report Share Posted February 21, 2005 I installed thunderbird from this site http://norlug.org/?op=rpms Add the repository into my urpmi database, type urpmi mozilla-thunderbird, and voila.. thunderbird is installed. I like it even more than Mozilla Messenger, but too bad I still cannot have the click open Firefox directly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
solarian Posted February 21, 2005 Report Share Posted February 21, 2005 (edited) thanx for your input, Crashdamage something I have to take in mind in the future Edited February 21, 2005 by solarian Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arctic Posted February 21, 2005 Report Share Posted February 21, 2005 So, what's wrong with using the provided source package? Why do you need an rpm?I just placed a shortcut to home/user/software/thunderbird/thunderbird on my taskbar and I can always launch it from a terminal ./thunderbird p.s. I'm still using Thunderbird 0.7.3.. does anyone suggest an upgrade to 1.0? :/ 0.7.3 does everything for me I need.. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> nothing is wrong with the tar.gz file provided at the thunderbird homepage.just unpack it and run the thunderbird command and you are done. I run 1.0 and it works very well. the only thing you need to do manually is add the link/icon/menu entry for the app. 1.0 is nearly bug-free (well, i haven't found any bugs so far but who knows? perfect software? i don't know any software that is 100% bug free), has some advanced options and is faster when fetching mails (my personal experience). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neilinoz Posted February 21, 2005 Author Report Share Posted February 21, 2005 (edited) Thankyou Dragonmade for the rpm link - I was able to download Thunderbird properly and it is working. I did try the rpm that tymark suggested, but it didn't work. Now - another question: How do I import all my emails and address book info from Evolution into Thunderbird? The "import" button does not seem to help at all, and there is precious little in the way of info that I have found yet. No RTFM for me I'm afraid. It goes like this: Tools -> Import -> Mail and then only offers "Communicator 4.x" as the only thing to import. Edited February 21, 2005 by neilinoz Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neilinoz Posted February 22, 2005 Author Report Share Posted February 22, 2005 Further research on Google has proven that there is no simple way to import. For posterity it goes like this: 1. Download and install Thunderbird. Don't test it yet by receiving emails - so do the following off line and not while Thunderbird or Evolution is running. 2. Go into ./evolution and find the two biggest files, which should be "inbox" and "sent" 3. Highlight the files, right click and copy. 4. Open ./thunderbird 5. Edit -> Paste. (There shouldn't be any conflicts here, but if there are then you probably received some email on Thunderbird before moving the files over. Just click on "erase" and your email should get removed by the larger file from Evolution) 6. Open Thunderbird and your inbox and sent items should be there. 7. If you have multiple inboxes then you should be intelligent enough to work out how to put them over as well. As for moving the Address list from Evolution to Thunderbird, there are some complex ways of doing it. This was my preferred option, which is probably the simplest: 1. Open Evolution 2. Click on the address book so that it opens. 3. Press print and print the addresses out. 4. Close Evolution and Open Thunderbird 5. Click on "Address Book" 6. Place the printed copy of your address book next to your keyboard. 7. Type the information from the printed sheet into the Thunderbird address book. 8. If your address book is large, make sure you have some chocolate nearby to help you with the process. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest adamf123 Posted March 3, 2005 Report Share Posted March 3, 2005 I came accross your post because I was experiencing the same bug. I really didn't feel like moving everything to a new email client so I figured out how to fix the bug instead. Rightclicking the message pane was a start. The problem is that you've selected the 'scim' input method for whatever reason. Right click the message pane, and change the input method to 'x input method' Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aRTee Posted March 3, 2005 Report Share Posted March 3, 2005 Hi adamf123, welcome to the board and thanks for contributing! neilinoz, thanks for reporting how to do the changeover. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
adamw Posted March 3, 2005 Report Share Posted March 3, 2005 I'm a bit late to the party, but I'd like to disagree with crashdamage a little. The best way to install software is always to use the official packages for your distribution, agreed. However, I'd say that if that is not possible, building from source is definitely preferable to installing unofficial RPMs or RPMs intended for a different distro (or different version of your distro) - so long as you install into /usr/local and not /usr. If you build stuff from scratch and put it into /usr it can certainly stuff up your system, but if you put it in /usr/local it's very clean and safe. At worst, if something you built starts to affect other stuff, you can very easily uninstall it and MDK will go back to using the version in /usr which will work perfectly. Installing non-MDK RPMs is not a good idea; they'll go into /usr and may well cause the same problems as compiling from source and installing to /usr. Sure, urpmi will *TRY* and keep track of the dependencies, but different distros compile things differently, have different versions, and phrase dependencies in different ways. Either of the following may occur: you install a Red Hat RPM. Red Hat do not have the same packaging policy or dependency phrasing as MDK do. The RPM requires a package that has no MDK equivalent, or the dependency is phrased in such a way that the MDK package does not satisfy it. Go straight to Dependency Hell, do not pass Go. You will end up forcing the installation, which is untidy and breaks stuff, or installing piles of Red Hat packages to satisfy the dependencies, which...is untidy and breaks stuff. The third-party package you installed is version W.X of ImportantLibrary. It installs itself into /usr and nukes the MDK package of ImportantLibrary. Unfortunately, the MDK package was version Y.Z and everything else in MDK is built against version Y.Z. Hilarity ensues. If you ever want to see this in action, do it with libgtk2 - if your version of MDK has gtk 2.4, install gtk 2.6 into /usr (either by building from source or using a gtk 2.6 package). Your system will not be in a pretty state afterwards. The third party package you install is important. You attempt to upgrade MDK to the next version. A: MDK attempts to upgrade the third party package and breaks everything. B: MDK ignores the third party package, doesn't install the MDK equivalent, and breaks everything. Neither is good. these are the reasons why you _really_ _don't_ _want_ to install anything but MDK packages into /usr , either by installing non-MDK RPMs or by building from source and installing to /usr instead of /usr/local. Now let's see what happens if you use /usr/local: Situation 1 - never happens, as you're building against an MDK system. You'll need to install the appropriate devel packages for whatever you're building, but once it's built, it will be built against your MDK system and it will work properly. Situation 2 - so you built GTK 2.6, installed it in /usr/local, and now all your standard MDK apps aren't working? easy. do make uninstall, the copy in /usr/local is removed and the copy in /usr is back to being used, and your system works again. You built some incredibly badly written program which doesn't *have* a make uninstall, and it caused the same problem? Still not a big deal, just go into /usr/local and deploy rm -rf at will. You know you're not going to kill anything really important because that all lives in /usr. Situation 3 - again, not a problem. The original MDK equivalent of whatever you built is still there, still installed and still present in /usr. MDK will upgrade it cleanly and without a problem. The version you built from source will still be there after the upgrade. If you're lucky it works fine. If you're unlucky, it needs to be rebuilt. If you're really unlucky it was something important to the system and causes things in the new MDK to break, but this is just like Situation 2 above - you just wipe it out and everything works. This is why building from source is the second-best way to do things. This is why /usr and /usr/local separation exists and why you should enforce it. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aRTee Posted March 4, 2005 Report Share Posted March 4, 2005 Goes to show, you're never too old to learn. Thanks adamw, that was very informative (+5) I'd say. I think this info should be appended / added to the rpm or software installation howto stuff. For instance this entry: http://www.mandrakeusers.org/index.php?showtopic=10615 Hmm, who can/will do that? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theYinYeti Posted March 7, 2005 Report Share Posted March 7, 2005 I agree with adamw. Installing from source is the next best thing, after installing from an RPM for your distribution (in some situations, source compiling can even be better). For those interested, I wrote a small article about software compiling: http://yves.gablin.club.fr/pc/linux.php?ar...oftware/install Yves. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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