Copy .thunderbird from i586 to x86_64

[marja]

Can I copy my .thunderbird from an i586 to a X86_64 system?

On some of my Mageia partitions the spell checkers work for all languages I use, in others only for Dutch and English, even though I have all needed Thunderbird language packs installed. I did download some separate dictionaries for Thunderbird, but that didn't work for French.

Although I do have a "spell check works with all languages" Thunderbird on a X86_64 test partition, it doesn't contain any of the real mailboxes I use.

[marja]

I'll first try to copy .thunderbird from the X86_64 default partition to the X86_64 test partition, I hadn't thought of that, yet. The test partition isn't very dirty, it was made very recently.

[wobo]

As long as ~/.thunderbird
- contains only data & config files
- the config files do not point to any 32-bit libs
- the user ID is the same in both systems
you will not have any probs (to the best of my knowledge).

[marja]

Thank you, Wobo, for your reply.
I'll need to reform my way of thinking, what you say is so logical, yet it hadn't popped to my mind.

After copying .thunderbird to my test partition, all spell checkers still work. So the problem is definitely not somewhere in .thunderbird. I thought I already uninstalled and reinstalled thunderbird, but maybe my memory is tricking me. Anyway, I'll uninstall again and then first remove any leftover configuration files before reinstalling.

[doktor5000]

Was never a problem for me. The config files don't point to any libraries AFAIK, only some addons which are arch-specific
(like Lightning) maybe need to be reinstalled. User ID can be changed uhm chowned really easy

[marja]

Thanks, doktor5000, that's gonna save time in near future

I'm starting to think that the partitions where several spell checkers don't work, are the partitions where I didn't add those languages during install, but afterwards. All you can do later on, is add some locales and language packages for sofware you use, but in MCC - System you can't choose multiple languages.

[doktor5000]

You mean you want to install support for more languages?
Install either locales- packages which you want, or hunspell-/aspell-/myspell dictionaries
if you only want the spellcheckers/dictionaries for those languages.


BTW: Actually i really like thunderbird profile compatibility. I'm using my profile
since Thunderbird 1.something (can' remember anymore) with all my emails
in it, got to know about IMAP much too late.

And there have never been any problems, maybe sometimes the folders/read&unread messages
hat to be reindexed IIRC when importing linux profile on windows system (yes, that works too).
Also its forwards and backwards compatible, you can go from thunderbird 3 to thunderbird 6
and back to thunderbird 3 with no problems/losses.

Also backup is really easy: close thunderbird (important!) copy ~/.thunderbird somewhere.
On a fresh /home, insert backed-up ~/.thunderbird and start it again.

[marja]

I run

Code: Select all

rdiff-backup .thunderbird .BUPthunderbird

often without first closing Thunderbird

Thanks for the warning

I'll have a look at those *spell dictionaries, I expected them to be installed as dependencies when installing language packs for Thunderbird, but I never checked whether that really did happen.

I converted to IMAP too late, I only started last year. Do you know you can drag and drop e-mails from pop mailboxes to IMAP mailboxes? I didn't know, but I tried and I was surprised to see it worked

[marja]

@ doktor5000

It works

I installed all *spell dictionaries for the languages I use, but it must have been the myspell dictionaries that were missing. Only from myspell I had nothing but Dutch and English.

How am I ever going to get all that beer you deserve to you

[doktor5000]

You simply should not backup when thunderbird is running because of the lock file, among others.
Maybe check http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_in_use for that.

For most other common issues, you can check: http://kb.mozillazine.org/Category:Issu ... derbird%29

[marja]

Thanks for explaining why I shouldn't do that. And for the links