326. Compiling Thunderbird 17.0.2 on Debian Testing

I tested this compile in a bare chroot, so the dependencies should be pretty much hammered out. The build is easy but fairly slow.

sudo apt-get install bzip2 build-essential python zip libgtk2.0-dev libdbus-glib-1-dev libasound2-dev libogg-dev libxt-dev yasm libcurl4-openssl-dev mesa-common-dev
mkdir ~/tmp
cd ~/tmp
wget ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/thunderbird/releases/17.0.2/source/thunderbird-17.0.2.source.tar.bz2
rm -rf comm-release/
tar xvf thunderbird-17.0.2.source.tar.bz2
mkdir bldthunder17
cd bldthunder17/
../comm-release/./configure --disable-necko-wifi
make
sudo make install

That took 122 minutes on a single core.
Checkinstall doesn't work and ends with segfault.

109. Building Thunderbird 11 on Debian testing

The build is fairly straightforward and pretty much identical to building 10.0.2 (earlybird): http://verahill.blogspot.com.au/2012/02/debian-testing-wheezy-64-building.html

As always, uninstall existing versions before installing a new one.

--start here --
First install the dependencies:
sudo apt-get install libdbus-glib-1-dev gir1.2-notify-0.7 libnotify-dev yasm checkinstall libzip-dev zip 


Download the sources  and untar:
mkdir ~/tmp
cd ~/tmp

wget ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/thunderbird/releases/11.0/source/thunderbird-11.0.source.tar.bz2
tar -xvf thunder-bird-11.0.source.tar.bz2
cd comm-release/

Start the build
./configure --disable-necko-wifi
make -j3

3 is the number of cores +1. If you have a quadcore CPU substitute 3 with 5. The build takes a while so you will probably want to do a parallel build.

Finally, to install
sudo make install

checkinstall is segfaulting for me.

---

Error:

/home/me/tmp/comm-release/mozilla/js/src/config/nsinstall -R -m 644 ../mozilla-config.h ../../../config/nsStaticComponents.h  ../../../dist/include
make[5]: /home/me/tmp/comm-release/mozilla/js/src/config/nsinstall: Command not found
make[5]: *** [export] Error 127
make[5]: Leaving directory `/home/me/tmp/comm-release/mozilla/js/src/config'
make[4]: *** [export] Error 2
make[4]: *** Waiting for unfinished jobs....
make[4]: Leaving directory `/home/me/tmp/comm-release/mozilla/js/src'
make[3]: *** [export_tier_js] Error 2
make[3]: Leaving directory `/home/me/tmp/comm-release/mozilla'
make[2]: *** [tier_js] Error 2
make[2]: Leaving directory `/home/me/tmp/comm-release/mozilla'
make[1]: *** [default] Error 2
make[1]: Leaving directory `/home/me/tmp/comm-release/mozilla'

Solution:

I got this error because I accidentally untared the new sources into an existing directory with an older version of thunderbird. The solution was to delete the directory and untar the sources again.

71. Building Thunderbird 10.0.2 on debian testing

I use evolution for email, contacts and calendar because it integrates well with gnome and because it looks a whole lot prettier than the version of Thunderbird (i.e. Icedove) in the debian repos (3.1.16-1).

Well, sometimes you've got to check out the alternatives. Here's how to build thunderbird 10.0.2 from source.

-- START HERE --

sudo apt-get install libdbus-glib-1-dev gir1.2-notify-0.7 libnotify-dev  yasm checkinstall libzip-dev zip

cd ~/tmp
wget ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/thunderbird/releases/10.0.2/source/thunderbird-10.0.2.source.tar.bz2

tar -xvf thunderbird-10.0.2.source.tar.bz2 

cd comm-release/

./configure --disable-necko-wifi

..
updating cache ../../.././config.cache
creating ./config.status
creating Makefile
creating config/Makefile
creating config/autoconf.mk
creating ldap/Makefile
creating ldap/clients/tools/Makefile
creating ldap/include/Makefile
creating ldap/libraries/Makefile
creating ldap/libraries/libldap/Makefile
creating ldap/libraries/libprldap/Makefile
creating ldap/libraries/libldif/Makefile
creating ldap/libraries/liblber/Makefile
creating ldap/libraries/libiutil/Makefile
creating ldap/libraries/libssldap/Makefile
creating ldap/libraries/libutil/Makefile

make -jN

...
make[4]: Leaving directory `/home/me/tmp/comm-release/mail/test/mozmill'
make[3]: Leaving directory `/home/me/tmp/comm-release/mail'
make[2]: Leaving directory `/home/me/tmp/comm-release'
make[1]: Leaving directory `/home/me/tmp/comm-release'
if test -d ./mozilla/dist/bin ; then touch ./mozilla/dist/bin/.purgecaches ; fi

where N is the number of cores +1 -- in my case it's 7 since I have a six-core CPU. Be aware that building does take a while.

sudo make install

(sudo checkinstall ended with segfault for some reason)

You are now done.

Make sure that /usr/local/bin is in your PATH

me@beryllium:~/tmp/comm-release$ which thunderbird
/usr/local/bin/thunderbird

Interesting observation:
while thunderbird starts thunderbird the home-built version seems to be referred to as earlybird:

What's ugly or not is subjective, but you may want to use this add-on:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/gnome-linux-integration/?src=search

---

Troubleshooting:
Error:
checking MOZ_PANGO_CFLAGS... -pthread -I/usr/include/pango-1.0 -I/usr/include/glib-2.0 -I/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/glib-2.0/include -I/usr/include/freetype2
checking MOZ_PANGO_LIBS... -pthread -lpangoft2-1.0 -lpango-1.0 -lfreetype -lfontconfig -lgobject-2.0 -lgmodule-2.0 -lgthread-2.0 -lrt -lglib-2.0
checking for gnome-vfs-2.0 >= 2.0 gnome-vfs-module-2.0 >= 2.0... checking for gconf-2.0 >= 1.2.1 gobject-2.0 ... checking for dbus-glib-1 >= 0.60... Package dbus-glib-1 was not found in the pkg-config search path. Perhaps you should add the directory containing `dbus-glib-1.pc' to the PKG_CONFIG_PATH environment variable No package 'dbus-glib-1' found
configure: error: Library requirements (dbus-glib-1 >= 0.60) not met; consider adjusting the PKG_CONFIG_PATH environment variable if your libraries are in a nonstandard prefix so pkg-config can find them.

Solution:
sudo apt-get install libdbus-glib-1-dev

Error:

checking MOZ_PANGO_LIBS... -pthread -lpangoft2-1.0 -lfreetype -lfontconfig -lpangocairo-1.0 -lpango-1.0 -lcairo -lgobject-2.0 -lgmodule-2.0 -lgthread-2.0 -lrt -lglib-2.0
checking for gnome-vfs-2.0 >= 2.0 gnome-vfs-module-2.0 >= 2.0... checking for gconf-2.0 >= 1.2.1 gobject-2.0 ... checking for libnotify >= 0.4... Package libnotify was not found in the pkg-config search path. Perhaps you should add the directory containing `libnotify.pc' to the PKG_CONFIG_PATH environment variable No package 'libnotify' found
configure: error: Library requirements (libnotify >= 0.4) not met; consider adjusting the PKG_CONFIG_PATH environment variable if your libraries are in a nonstandard prefix so pkg-config can find them

Solution:
sudo apt-get install gir1.2-notify-0.7 libnotify-dev

Error:

checking MOZ_DBUS_GLIB_LIBS... -pthread -ldbus-glib-1 -ldbus-1 -lpthread -lgobject-2.0 -lgthread-2.0 -lrt -lglib-2.0
checking __attribute__ ((aligned ())) support... trying 64
64
configure: error: yasm is a required build tool for this architecture when webm is enabled. You may either install yasm or --disable-webm (which disables the WebM video format). See https://developer.mozilla.org/en/YASM for more details.
configure: error: ./configure failed for mozilla

Solution:
sudo apt-get install yasm