2 hours later - E-MAIL!

Upon reflection I have no idea why I did not just use the Evolution Mail package that came with edubuntu. I instead decided that I would go all out Mozilla and set up Thunderbird. The bird would of course give the fox someone to play with assuming fire and thunder mix... In any case.

I opened up FireFox and typed Thunderbird e-mail into the URL window. I was magically whisked to the download page for Thunderbird. I clicked on the button and told it I wanted to save the file. I tried to create a folder in the File System folder, but it would not let me do it so I created a new folder in my home area instead a saved the file to it.

When it was done downloading, I double clicked on it and it opened the contents of the archive in Archive Manager. There was one folder. I right clicked on it and selected Extract and placed it in the folder I created during the download process. Well, then I was stuck. There was not a file called INSTALL or SETUP or anything like that. I double clicked the readme file. It opened up blank. I double clicked the icon labeled Thunderbird. It had three little gears on it and looked like a good possibility. I was told it was a script file and asked if I wanted to open it as text, open it in a terminal window or just open it. As Text it appeared blank, just opening it did nothing. Selecting in terminal window actually launched the Thunderbird program.

I went through the configuration and since I was setting it up to interact with our exchange server I modified the server settings and it connected and brought down the mail in my inbox. I then clicked on the icon that would collapse the folder tree and selected "Manage Folder Subscriptions" I picked the folders I wanted to subscribe to and everything was good. I pulled a few pictures from e-mail to play with then a student showed up and I closed the mail program.

When I went to get into again I thought it was ridiculous to have to browse to the folder and double click the icon then select to run in terminal window so I tried to set up a shortcut. I broke everything. By the time I got done, Thunderbird refused to even open!

I did the unthinkable and went looking for HELP. The Thunderbird download page had a "step-by-step" instruction page for getting started. It said download and run the install file... (Real Helpful since there wasn't an install file).

Pissed off and ready to change to something else I took a peek at the applications menu and saw an ADD/Remove option so I clicked on it. It said for more complex jobs I should try something called the Synaptic Package Manager. Sounded cool so I went looking for it.

The Synaptic Package Manager was located under the System menu then the Administration option. It gave me a huge list of things I could install. Under the MAIL option were five things labeled Thunderbird so I checked all 5 of them and hit apply. It downloaded 5 "packages" for installation and installed them. I looked under Applications then Internet and there it was. I had to re-configure everything, but at least now I have a quick way to get to my mail.