[solved] Thunderbird not in Neon in APT, only Snap/Flatpak? How to use .deb or migrate my configuration from APT to Snap?

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I am surprised that “apt search” is unable to find Thunderbird package in official Neon 24.04 User Edition noble repositories.

It installed Snap (Snap Store is controlled by a commercial company/is proprietary, can not be distributed without the Store :-1:) and so not picked up my TB configuration which I have at ~/.thunderbird/ from previous Debian based distribution.

Beside Snap/Flatpak, official TB download page fails to link to PPA and links to a Tar archive (so no way to keep up to date without repeated manual downloads):

~/snap/thunderbird/ contains something after I have created random account.

Maybe it can be symlinked somehow: https://askubuntu.com/questions/1506802/updating-thunderbird-from-apt-to-snap-removed-my-config

To tell the truth, I have been unpleasantly surprised seeing that big Snap installation without me requesting a Snap.

This worked :shamrock::

So to delete whole Snap including Snap Thunderbird and its configuration I have ran:
sudo snap remove --purge thunderbird && sudo apt purge snapd

Installed the Mozilla PPA repository and a TB .deb file:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mozillateam/ppa && sudo apt update && sudo apt install thunderbird=1:*

number 1 is seen in command “apt list thunderbird -a” and “apt policy thunderbird” output, possibly defining repository number preference.

Then running Thunderbid from applications menu, instantly picked up my TB configuration ~/.thunderbird/ created by apt package! :white_check_mark:

2

UPDATE:

One more step is needed to avoid damned proprietary Snapd + Snap TB version to be reinstalled during “apt full-upgrade”:

sudo tee /etc/apt/preferences.d/mozillateam-thunderbird <<EOF
Package: thunderbird*
Pin: origin ppa.launchpadcontent.net
Pin-Priority: 900
EOF