Portable Thunderbird

What is this?

Portable Thunderbird places the Thunderbird email client with its configuration files in a folder to utilize it without installation in the Puppy space(pupsave).

Most of the email clients for Linux place the mailbox at the user home. For the case of the Thunderbird on Puppy, it is under /root/.thunderbird, that is in the 'Puppy Space', in other word, the 'pupsave'. It will easily filled up the 'pupsave' because the email may have a large attachment of photoes or movies.

You can avoid the Thunderbird consuming the pupsave by setting the mailbox location somewhere under /mnt/home, outside Puppy space.

The Portable Thunderbird holds the Thunderbird code, its settings, and the mailbox in the same 'thunderbird-portable' folder, so that they are free from the 'Puppy space' and not limited by the pupsave size.

WARNING: The mail account and all the messages are not encrypted. Your privacy is revealed when somebody else uses your PC. You can place the Portable Thunderbird on a USB pen drive and manage it by yourself. In such a case, never forget to unplug the pen drive from the PC when you leave the PC.

Tested on Precise-571JP. May works with most of Puppy 5.x, but does not work on Puppy 4.x. Wary/Racy need dbus and dbus-glib installed.

How to use?

I. Installation

1. Extract thunderbird-portable-*.tar.gz at somewhere under /mnt/home, or under some mounted point like /mnt/sdb1. No mater the file system of the partition, ext2/3/4, f2fs(if the kernel can handle), ntfs or vfat. You can remove the archive *.tar.gz after extracting. A folder 'thunderbird-portable-*' is made. You can move this folder anywhere under /mnt, '/mnt/home/apps/thunderbird-portable' for example. Do not change the root name of the folder other than 'thunderbird-portable'. For example,'thunderbird-portable', 'thunderbird-portable-new' are both valid.
   
   The thunderbird-portable-* folder works as a ROX application. It is seen as an icon with a gear. Unfortunately it does not work as a ROX applicition on NTFS file system. The icon shows normal folder in this case.
2. Click thunderbird-portable-* folder if the icon shows a gear . Or, open the folder and click the executable thunderbird-portable. A GUI opens.
3. Click 'OK' to install thunderbird. The installer automatically downloads the most recent thunderbird for your language.
   
   If the automatic downloading fails, anyhow get the tarball from the Thunderbird web page and drag the tarball on the GUI entry.

4. Importing mail accounts
   You can import previous mail accounts if you were using Thunderbird or SeaMonkey on the Puppy before. Thunderbird or SeaMonkey on Windows can also be imported. No support from Linux versions other than the Puppy currently running, nor from email clients other than Thunderbird or SeaMonkey.

II. Launching Thunderbird

After the installation finishes, the thunderbird-portable works as a launcher.

If you register on the Puppy menu, the Thunderbird(portable) appears on the Puppy menu. The built-in Thunderbird, if exists, shows in the menu in parallel. You can register the thunderbird-portable as the default email client.

You can click the thunderbird-portable folder or the executable to launch the Thunderbird, no matter registerered or not. If the thunderbird-portable folder is under /mnt/home, you can make a desktop icon dragging the thunderbird-portable folder on the desktop.

The thunderbird-portable is registered on the Puppy Package Manager. You can uninstall it from the PPM and then the Thunderbird(portable) is removed from the Puppy menu, but the Thunderbird in the thunderbird-portable folder is still there.

You can remove the thunderbird-portable folder to erase the code and all the mail. But the menu entry is still in the Puppy menu. You need to uninstall the thunderbird-portable using PPM to remove it from the Puppy menu.

III. The configuration and the mail box

The configuration files of the Thunderbird is in the hidden folder .thunderbird in the thunderbird-portable folder. The mailbox is under .thunderbird/Mail in the thunderbird-portable folder as the default. You can change the 'Local directory' from the 'Account Settings'.

Move the whole thunderbird-portable folder if you want to move or backup. All the configuration and the mail box within it. All the saved messages are lost if you remove the thunderbird-portable folder.

IV. Updating Thunderbird

• Once you install the Thunderbird, it is automatically updated when the new release is available. Ensure the setting from the thunderbird menu > Preferences > Advanced > Update. You can also do manually update from the thunderbird menu > Help > About Thunderbird.
• Or, right-click the thunderbird-portable folder and select 'Build'. Or, open the folder and click the executable 'Build'.
• Or, you can download the new tarball from Thunderbird web page using any browser, and drag and drop it on the thunderbird-portable folder.

V. Using on another Puppy

The installed thunderbird can be run on another Puppy with the same accounts and mailbox. To registor on the new Puppy, right click the thunderbird-portable folder and select 'Register on the Puppy' if you want to. Or click the executable 'Register' in the folder.

Feed back

Visit the Puppy Discussion Forum:
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=93563

2014-05-03 thunderbird-portable 0.1
Shinobar http://paper.cup.com/