Installing Thunderbird from PPA

[Şerban S.]

Installing Thunderbird from PPA

Snapd and Thunderbird removal

As you probably noticed, Thunderbird is available through a forced install of Snap (snapd service).
To get rid of this, open a terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and copy/paste:

Code:

sudo remove snapd

This command, will trigger also the removal of Thunderbird. That is what I did.

Or:

Code:

sudo snap remove thunderbird

Installing Thunderbird from Mozilla PPA

Enter the following code into the Terminal:

Code:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mozillateam/ppa
sudo apt update

Now, let’s prepare the installation of Thunderbird. Copy and Paste exactly the entire code from below:

Code:

echo '
Package: *
Pin: release o=LP-PPA-mozillateam
Pin-Priority: 1001

Package: thunderbird
Pin: version 2:1snap*
Pin-Priority: -1
' | sudo tee /etc/apt/preferences.d/thunderbird

To execute the code, you will be asked for the super password. Type it into the terminal.

Installing Thunderbird. Copy And Paste into the terminal:

Code:

sudo apt install thunderbird

In order to prevent a snap takeover of the upgrade, you need to Copy/Paste the following code into the Terminal:

Code:

echo 'Unattended-Upgrade::Allowed-Origins:: "LP-PPA-mozillateam:${distro_codename}";' | sudo tee /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/51unattended-upgrades-thunderbird

Terminal output of the above steps

Code:

Welcome to Linux Lite 7.0 serban

Thursday 06 June 2024, 12:14:51
Memory Usage: 2985/15900MB (18.77%)
Disk Usage: 12/30GB (42%)
Support - https://www.linuxliteos.com/forums/ (Right click, Open Link)

serban  ~  echo '
Package: *
Pin: release o=LP-PPA-mozillateam
Pin-Priority: 1001


Package: thunderbird
Pin: version 2:1snap*
Pin-Priority: -1
' | sudo tee /etc/apt/preferences.d/thunderbird
[sudo] password for serban:


Package: *
Pin: release o=LP-PPA-mozillateam
Pin-Priority: 1001


Package: thunderbird
Pin: version 2:1snap*
Pin-Priority: -1


serban  ~  sudo apt install thunderbird
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
Suggested packages:
thunderbird-gnome-support ttf-lyx libotr5
The following NEW packages will be installed:
thunderbird
0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 8 not upgraded.
Need to get 70.8 MB of archives.
After this operation, 258 MB of additional disk space will be used.
Get:1 https://ppa.launchpadcontent.net/mozillateam/thunderbird-next/ubuntu noble/main amd64 thunderbird amd64 1:125.0+build3-0ubuntu0.24.04.1~mt1 [70.8 MB]
Fetched 70.8 MB in 3s (21.5 MB/s)
Selecting previously unselected package thunderbird.
(Reading database ... 425603 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack .../thunderbird_1%3a125.0+build3-0ubuntu0.24.04.1~mt1_amd64.
deb ...
Unpacking thunderbird (1:125.0+build3-0ubuntu0.24.04.1~mt1) ...
Setting up thunderbird (1:125.0+build3-0ubuntu0.24.04.1~mt1) ...
Processing triggers for desktop-file-utils (0.27-2build1) ...
Processing triggers for hicolor-icon-theme (0.17-2) ...
Processing triggers for gnome-menus (3.36.0-1.1ubuntu3) ...
Processing triggers for man-db (2.12.0-4build2) ...
Processing triggers for mailcap (3.70+nmu1ubuntu1) ...

Best regards, Șerban.

[Valtam]

What version of LL is this for?

[Şerban S.]

What version of LL is this for?

I assume it works on LL 6.6, simply because I had some trouble updating TB about one year ago and I used the Mozilla PPA..
But the steps outlined in the previous post, were from the LL 7.0 installation.
So, it's certain it works on LL 7.0 and it might work for ll 6.6.
Beyond that, I don't know. I never needed to change the installation from LL 6.0 to LL 6.2 and 6.4, and even before that (LL 4.x, 5.x), all worked just fine.
All I can remember is that it pissed me off when I saw "installing snapd". Next step was to wipe it out. I did it even for LL 7.0 RC1.
But this obviously, is my choice. Other people might agree with Snap/ snapd so, if they do, then it's OK to keep the snapd running. Probably they will want it for the FireFox, too.

[Valtam]

There's both a Firefox and Thunderbird PPA in 7x and no snap.

Sent from my Mobile phone using Tapatalk

[Şerban S.]

There's both a Firefox and Thunderbird PPA in 7x and no snap.

Sent from my Mobile phone using Tapatalk

That is weird! Why then the setup pushed the snapd?
I have to mention that the download I made, was at about 01:00 (UTC+3) on the first of June.
I also installed it on my primary machine (Dell, but on a different drive) for testing purposes.
When I run the custom setup script, it has in it a "sudo apt install ***" and among many others, it has Thunderbird too.
Since I run many things lately from the CLI, I could see the message regarding "installing snapd". This drove me crazy. I never liked the philosophy behind Snap/snapd.
Am I supposed to download another ISO? Did you make changes in the initial release?
I'd like to have the latest release. I usually keep a long time the latest root of the OS version (5.0, etc.), since it can be upgraded for years. I guess that I still have the LL 5.0 and LL 6.0 somewhere on the backup drives. Possibly, even older ones (3.x, 4.x).

For what is worth, when I searched for a solution based on Mozilla PPA, I discovered that there is a catch with the snapd: it seems that there is a priority flag attached to this installation which overrides the Mozilla PPA installation, thus hijacking the initial installation. See the last lines of code for the Mozilla PPA installation.
The code changes the priority of the snap update/upgrade process from 1001 to -1 putting the Mozilla PPA on the first level of priority.
Maybe that's why the PPA was hijacked.
I'll test the installation on ASUS X200MA to check if it is true.
I will also re-download the ISO, just in case.

Best regards, Șerban.

[Şerban S.]

There's both a Firefox and Thunderbird PPA in 7x and no snap. [...]

Thanks for pointing me to the Mozilla PPA!

I re-downloaded the ISO and re-wrote the boot media (Ventoy disk, ventoy-1.0.98) to ensure a clean boot environment.
I checked everything. All works fine.
I wanted to post the installation log I made, but for some reason, Cloudflare blocked the post.

You can view/download the file here:
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/dlpke7jnz...erpb4&dl=0

Best regards, Șerban.