6 ms·

Thunderbird 78 is available on the Snap Store

34 points by reimbar 6y ago

eznzt 6y ago
In case you're looking for a package of Thunderbird that takes a while to launch.
- sgt 6y ago
  What's a while?
  - Spivak 6y ago
    However long it takes (on your system) to extract and mount a squashfs on a loopback device, link, and run. Snap made an uhh.. odd architectural decision with that one. The whole squashfs game doesn't actually buy you that much compression in practice but if you have slower CPU it will grind you to a halt. I think it's kinda weird they went this route since this dance seems mostly unrelated to the actual value of Snaps which is "here's your app self-contained-ish."
    - sgt 6y ago
      Could it perhaps be fixed by having some kind of Snap cache for frequently used apps? At the expense of a little disk space, but vastly improving load times.
aidenn0 6y ago
Do people actually use Thunderbird still? Every single time I've tried it, it has been a terrible experience. For GUI mail clients I tend to swing between evolution and claws. Evolution does all the fancy stuff (html e-mail, seemless integration of calendar invites, outlook support) way better than Thunderbird and claws does all the workhorse stuff way better than Thunderbird (flexible mail fitering, organization, &c.). Meanwhile Thunderbird has corrupted my inbox 3 times in a sum total of about 3 years of me using it spread out over a decade, crashes more than evolution, and does the core messaging features worse than claws.
- Darmody 6y ago
  I've been using it for a decade, at home and at work. The only problem I had with it is that sometimes it keeps asking for the hotmail password.
- abawany 6y ago
  I use it on all (edit)applicable platforms available to me and also make tiny financial contributions to the project. Sure it has some imperfections but as a product that does "all of the things" (email, calendar (CalDAV), contacts (CardDAV), etc.) and open source - imo, it deserves support. I reported some bugs on the 68.x(edit: oops, 78.x) release and their response was prompt, professional, and helpful. I love Thunderbird.
- pizza234 6y ago
  I do, and on multiple machines! Never got any corruption, but that's of course anecdata - also, I don't use the global search/index. I personally don't think it's so terrible - ultimately, the email medium itself hasn't evolved for... never. Definitely the address book is garbage in any possible way (both in the UX, and in the legendary Mork backend) - one has to use addons in order to get a sane experience. Additionally, AFAIK, it's so internally tangled that after years, they couldn't make a tabbed email writing window. Another indicative bit: "Plans existed for Mork to be replaced with MozStorage in Thunderbird 3.0."¹. My biggest worry was actually the addons. There has been a major API change at some point, and several of my addons weren't compatible. Took years for equivalent ones to be developed. Now... another API change (sigh). ¹: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mork_(file_format) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mork_(file_format)
- fruffy 6y ago
  I only use Thunderbird on all my devices for all my different email addresses. No other client. Happy with it. Also works nicely for dual-booting and sharing a config between Windows and Linux. One feature I miss is sync. Something like Firefox Sync would be very useful.
- bayindirh 6y ago
  I use Thunderbird on three computers continuously, and manage three IMAP accounts. I'm possibly using it more than 15 years as of today and it never corrupted a mailbox or lost any mail. Its filters are top notch and it has one of the best and fastest spam filtering as I've seen. One of the same accounts on Thunderbird is also managed via KMail on my (personal) workstation and I love some features of KMail too but, it doesn't feel as fast and nimble. I keep KMail because of its KDE & Akonadi integration (it continues to process mail even if KMail is not running). At the end of the day, Thunderbird is an awesome E-mail client. It does everything and doesn't crash even if I leave it open for weeks. 78 integrates lightning so, calendars are well integrated and works flawlessly for me too. I've also did some enterprise integration work on Thunderbird and it has some nice flexibility options under the hood. However I need to note that (in my case) all systems it communicates with are UNIX servers (Sendmail, Postfix, Dovecot, et. al). Of course, YMMV.
Darmody 6y ago
Thunderbird is not the kind of app that should be snapped. We needed tools like snap for software that could be troublesome due incompatibilities with the system libraries or software by third parties who can't make sure their packages would work on any system. Thunderbird has always worked great the way it was. I'm so glad I'm not using Ubuntu anymore.
- kd913 6y ago
  Are you kidding me? Thunderbird and Firefox are perfect candidates for snap. Before with Thunderbird, the only packaged version of thunderbird was an extremely old version released. Even now on 18.04 the package version of thunderbird is version 68. To a certain degree the same nonsense happens with Firefox. The version of Firefox provided by apt lags behind for security releases. In contrast, the snap version is now released almost the same day for ubuntu 16.04, 18.04, 20.04 and 20.10. I'm glad to be using snaps and Ubuntu. Finally I can now get an easy installation for getting the latest version of intellij, vscode, firefox, thunderbird with no additional repos or faffle.
  - mixmastamyk 6y ago
    That's actually good because they broke a few things in the latest Thunderbirds. I also prefer a faster startup.
    - kd913 6y ago
      Then fine, run sudo snap revert to go back to a hopefully older stable build/revision. Certainly a better as an option than going back to version 68. Also I don't really care about startups when the difference is on the order of 1-5 seconds. It is not the dominant factor in my boot times. The slowest aspect for me is still typing passwords. Services which are waiting for online for network interface also take longer.
      - inetknght 6y ago
        > Then fine, run sudo snap revert No. The solution shouldn't be on users to learn another package management system beyond what the OS already provides.
curt15 6y ago
Will this eventually replace the deb package, over which I have full control of updates?
- pizza234 6y ago
  This is actually a very critical concern, compared to other programs in general. Thunderbird must have changed the WebExtensions APIs after v68 (based on what I see in the addons compatibility). Several extensions in the top list by users, are not compatible with v78¹. Thunderbird snap users are literally going to wake up one day, and find that [some of] their extensions are not working anymore. ¹=https://addons.thunderbird.net/en-US/thunderbird/extensions/?sort=users https://addons.thunderbird.net/en-US/thunderbird/extensions/... edit: Removed Lightning reference, as it's not 100% clear if it will be bundled with TB.
  - bayindirh 6y ago
    Lightning is bundled with 78. At least Debian's packages integrate that. I use a couple of online calendars with it and, it works very stable.
- bayindirh 6y ago
  For Debian it's almost certainly no. For Ubuntu, it's possibly yes. I'm not sure that it's too late to revolt against Snap in general but, as far as I can see, people don't care if it works somehow.
  - mbushey 6y ago
    Ubuntu/Snap simply does not work anymore. The sandboxing blocks all access to remote shares. I run a ZFS NFS file server for my data, and snap is blocking this. I'm in the process of switching all my Linux machines over to Arch. Also on one of my Ubuntu machines Chrome, which is a snap, seqfaults on startup. To me, Ubuntu is dead/dying other than in a docker container.
    - bayindirh 6y ago
shaicoleman 6y ago
Or just use the Flatpak version on Flathub, which doesn't take a ridiculous amount of time to launch https://flathub.org/apps/details/org.mozilla.Thunderbird https://flathub.org/apps/details/org.mozilla.Thunderbird
- entropicdrifter 6y ago
  Here's a performance and feature comparison between Flatpak and Snap with Firefox, for reference: https://www.ctrl.blog/entry/firefox-linux-flatpak-snap.html https://www.ctrl.blog/entry/firefox-linux-flatpak-snap.html
  - sgt 6y ago
    My goodness, the Linux desktop is a mess! Tiny mouse cursor... that made me almost choke on my coffee from laughter.
- simion314 6y ago
  Thunderbird starts with my computer and I restart my computer maybe 2 times a week.
  - lokedhs 6y ago
    How's do you you deal with Firefox updates where it refuses to load any pages until you restart?
    - simion314 6y ago
      I click the restart button. It is annoying that it happens unexpectedly but not a big deal.
      - lokedhs 6y ago
        I was hoping you had found a easy way around it. I find it incredibly annoying when I'm in the middle of doing something.
m4r35n357 6y ago
Look at your mounts, then disable snap.
wkearney99 6y ago
snap is a mess, no thanks.

34 points by reimbar 6y ago

eznzt 6y ago

In case you're looking for a package of Thunderbird that takes a while to launch.

sgt 6y ago
What's a while?
- Spivak 6y ago
  However long it takes (on your system) to extract and mount a squashfs on a loopback device, link, and run. Snap made an uhh.. odd architectural decision with that one. The whole squashfs game doesn't actually buy you that much compression in practice but if you have slower CPU it will grind you to a halt. I think it's kinda weird they went this route since this dance seems mostly unrelated to the actual value of Snaps which is "here's your app self-contained-ish."
  - sgt 6y ago
    Could it perhaps be fixed by having some kind of Snap cache for frequently used apps? At the expense of a little disk space, but vastly improving load times.

aidenn0 6y ago

Do people actually use Thunderbird still? Every single time I've tried it, it has been a terrible experience. For GUI mail clients I tend to swing between evolution and claws. Evolution does all the fancy stuff (html e-mail, seemless integration of calendar invites, outlook support) way better than Thunderbird and claws does all the workhorse stuff way better than Thunderbird (flexible mail fitering, organization, &c.). Meanwhile Thunderbird has corrupted my inbox 3 times in a sum total of about 3 years of me using it spread out over a decade, crashes more than evolution, and does the core messaging features worse than claws.

Darmody 6y ago
I've been using it for a decade, at home and at work. The only problem I had with it is that sometimes it keeps asking for the hotmail password.
abawany 6y ago
I use it on all (edit)applicable platforms available to me and also make tiny financial contributions to the project. Sure it has some imperfections but as a product that does "all of the things" (email, calendar (CalDAV), contacts (CardDAV), etc.) and open source - imo, it deserves support. I reported some bugs on the 68.x(edit: oops, 78.x) release and their response was prompt, professional, and helpful. I love Thunderbird.
pizza234 6y ago
I do, and on multiple machines! Never got any corruption, but that's of course anecdata - also, I don't use the global search/index. I personally don't think it's so terrible - ultimately, the email medium itself hasn't evolved for... never. Definitely the address book is garbage in any possible way (both in the UX, and in the legendary Mork backend) - one has to use addons in order to get a sane experience. Additionally, AFAIK, it's so internally tangled that after years, they couldn't make a tabbed email writing window. Another indicative bit: "Plans existed for Mork to be replaced with MozStorage in Thunderbird 3.0."¹. My biggest worry was actually the addons. There has been a major API change at some point, and several of my addons weren't compatible. Took years for equivalent ones to be developed. Now... another API change (sigh). ¹: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mork_(file_format) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mork_(file_format)
fruffy 6y ago
I only use Thunderbird on all my devices for all my different email addresses. No other client. Happy with it. Also works nicely for dual-booting and sharing a config between Windows and Linux. One feature I miss is sync. Something like Firefox Sync would be very useful.
bayindirh 6y ago
I use Thunderbird on three computers continuously, and manage three IMAP accounts. I'm possibly using it more than 15 years as of today and it never corrupted a mailbox or lost any mail. Its filters are top notch and it has one of the best and fastest spam filtering as I've seen. One of the same accounts on Thunderbird is also managed via KMail on my (personal) workstation and I love some features of KMail too but, it doesn't feel as fast and nimble. I keep KMail because of its KDE & Akonadi integration (it continues to process mail even if KMail is not running). At the end of the day, Thunderbird is an awesome E-mail client. It does everything and doesn't crash even if I leave it open for weeks. 78 integrates lightning so, calendars are well integrated and works flawlessly for me too. I've also did some enterprise integration work on Thunderbird and it has some nice flexibility options under the hood. However I need to note that (in my case) all systems it communicates with are UNIX servers (Sendmail, Postfix, Dovecot, et. al). Of course, YMMV.

Darmody 6y ago

Thunderbird is not the kind of app that should be snapped. We needed tools like snap for software that could be troublesome due incompatibilities with the system libraries or software by third parties who can't make sure their packages would work on any system. Thunderbird has always worked great the way it was. I'm so glad I'm not using Ubuntu anymore.

kd913 6y ago
Are you kidding me? Thunderbird and Firefox are perfect candidates for snap. Before with Thunderbird, the only packaged version of thunderbird was an extremely old version released. Even now on 18.04 the package version of thunderbird is version 68. To a certain degree the same nonsense happens with Firefox. The version of Firefox provided by apt lags behind for security releases. In contrast, the snap version is now released almost the same day for ubuntu 16.04, 18.04, 20.04 and 20.10. I'm glad to be using snaps and Ubuntu. Finally I can now get an easy installation for getting the latest version of intellij, vscode, firefox, thunderbird with no additional repos or faffle.
- mixmastamyk 6y ago
  That's actually good because they broke a few things in the latest Thunderbirds. I also prefer a faster startup.
  - kd913 6y ago
    Then fine, run sudo snap revert to go back to a hopefully older stable build/revision. Certainly a better as an option than going back to version 68. Also I don't really care about startups when the difference is on the order of 1-5 seconds. It is not the dominant factor in my boot times. The slowest aspect for me is still typing passwords. Services which are waiting for online for network interface also take longer.
    - inetknght 6y ago
      > Then fine, run sudo snap revert No. The solution shouldn't be on users to learn another package management system beyond what the OS already provides.

curt15 6y ago

Will this eventually replace the deb package, over which I have full control of updates?

pizza234 6y ago
This is actually a very critical concern, compared to other programs in general. Thunderbird must have changed the WebExtensions APIs after v68 (based on what I see in the addons compatibility). Several extensions in the top list by users, are not compatible with v78¹. Thunderbird snap users are literally going to wake up one day, and find that [some of] their extensions are not working anymore. ¹=https://addons.thunderbird.net/en-US/thunderbird/extensions/?sort=users https://addons.thunderbird.net/en-US/thunderbird/extensions/... edit: Removed Lightning reference, as it's not 100% clear if it will be bundled with TB.
- bayindirh 6y ago
  Lightning is bundled with 78. At least Debian's packages integrate that. I use a couple of online calendars with it and, it works very stable.
bayindirh 6y ago
For Debian it's almost certainly no. For Ubuntu, it's possibly yes. I'm not sure that it's too late to revolt against Snap in general but, as far as I can see, people don't care if it works somehow.
- mbushey 6y ago
  Ubuntu/Snap simply does not work anymore. The sandboxing blocks all access to remote shares. I run a ZFS NFS file server for my data, and snap is blocking this. I'm in the process of switching all my Linux machines over to Arch. Also on one of my Ubuntu machines Chrome, which is a snap, seqfaults on startup. To me, Ubuntu is dead/dying other than in a docker container.
  - bayindirh 6y ago

shaicoleman 6y ago

Or just use the Flatpak version on Flathub, which doesn't take a ridiculous amount of time to launch https://flathub.org/apps/details/org.mozilla.Thunderbird https://flathub.org/apps/details/org.mozilla.Thunderbird

entropicdrifter 6y ago
Here's a performance and feature comparison between Flatpak and Snap with Firefox, for reference: https://www.ctrl.blog/entry/firefox-linux-flatpak-snap.html https://www.ctrl.blog/entry/firefox-linux-flatpak-snap.html
- sgt 6y ago
  My goodness, the Linux desktop is a mess! Tiny mouse cursor... that made me almost choke on my coffee from laughter.
simion314 6y ago
Thunderbird starts with my computer and I restart my computer maybe 2 times a week.
- lokedhs 6y ago
  How's do you you deal with Firefox updates where it refuses to load any pages until you restart?
  - simion314 6y ago
    I click the restart button. It is annoying that it happens unexpectedly but not a big deal.
    - lokedhs 6y ago
      I was hoping you had found a easy way around it. I find it incredibly annoying when I'm in the middle of doing something.

m4r35n357 6y ago

Look at your mounts, then disable snap.

wkearney99 6y ago

snap is a mess, no thanks.