Ubuntu
thunderbird package

Why release a Tunderbird update before xul-ext-lightning is compatible?

Asked by Christopher

On several occasions, Thunderbird has been upgraded before xul-ext-lightning is compatible. I suspect a large majority of Thunderbird users rely on a functioning Lightning.

It only seems to happen during Alpha testing, but even so we testers still need to know what's upcoming during the day. If it were only for a few hours or a day, I could live with it, but when I don't have a scheduler I quickly reboot into my stable partition, which means I'm not testing.

Evolution just doesn't meet my needs, so that's not an option.

Question information

Language:
English Edit question
Status:
Solved
For:
Ubuntu thunderbird Edit question
Assignee:
No assignee Edit question
Solved by:
Christopher
Solved:
Last query:
Last reply:
Revision history for this message
A. Denton (aquina) said : 		#1

Hello Christopher!

The question you stated is a very basic one and indeed a thing my colleagues and I have adressed for some time in the past.

There are manny different people involve in the current development cycle and things have changed as far as Mozilla is conerned. Also the Ubuntu developers and packagers have to do their work to ensure everything runs smoothly.

However in this case Mozilla is the main problem. As the report [L1] as well as various other reports on the internet indicate Mozilla had to back-pedal since there were serious complains from the industry regarding their current release cycle. In conjunction with that also the Lighning developers had problems with migrating and testing their software.

To bee on the safe side within production environments I srngly recommend you to switch to esr and wait for 24 hrs with Firefox or Thunderbird upgrades. You're also even more flexible with AddOns when using ESR. To bullet-proof enable ESR perform the three steps below.

1. Open about:config in FF/Tb and look for "channel", then change "release" to "esr".
2. Open "/defaults/pref/channel-prefs.js" in your FF/Tb install dir and do the same replacement (not more!).
3. Restart the both applications and then go to [Kontext-Menu] HELP->ABOUT and check the channel.

[L1] http://tron-delta.org/en/news-articles/newsflash/firefox-thunderbird-esr.php

Revision history for this message
Christopher (soft-kristal) said : 		#2

Thanks - I've 'yelled' at Mozilla for this sort of thing a few times. I don't think they realize that the vast majority of Thunderbird users rely on Lightning as much as an address book.