Sharing mail between Windows and SUSE

English Applications
1

To whom this may concern:

I am a linux newbie and a Windows oldie. I have one PC and have installed XP on one HD and SUSE on another HD. I sometimes need to work on one and sometimes on the other. I need email access at all times with a common database of addresses and emails and account setups. I think I have achieved this.

I selected Mozilla Thunderbird as my new mail client application as it is available for both Windows and linux (thanks to open standards).

I achieved this by installing Thunderbird on XP and importing all my addresses, email and account details from Outlook Express. This is easy to do in Thunderbird. I then had to adjust the account settings a little to make the sending and receiving work properly with my service providers (hotmail and yahoo). BTW, so far I think Thunderbird has better functionality than OE.

Then I switched to SUSE and installed Thunderbird here, without importing anything or setting up any accounts. After closing Thunderbird, I altered the Thunderbird profiles.ini file to point to a symbolic link back to the Thunderbird mail folder on my Windows HD. That was it. SUSE Thunderbird now looks just like it does on Windows with the same accounts, folders and email.

I have never done this before so I may have missed something curcial but so far it works and is very handy. :slight_smile:

Note:

  1. In SUSE I had to allow my user account to be able to mount my Windows HD. There is a policy system built in to SUSE that prevents this by default except for root. I hear there is more than one way to resolve this; I choose to modify the /etc/PolicyKit/PolicyKit.conf file (as root) to allow my user name authority to do anything. This is explained in ‘man PolicyKit.conf’. See also: http://forums.opensuse.org/applications/422356-how-do-i-kick-hal-backside.html?highlight=kick+hal
    My own file now looks like this (my username is “bam”):

<?xml version=“1.0” encoding=“UTF-8”?> <!-- -- XML -- –>

<!DOCTYPE pkconfig PUBLIC “-//freedesktop//DTD PolicyKit Configuration 1.0//EN”
“http://hal.freedesktop.org/releases/PolicyKit/1.0/config.dtd”>

<!-- See the manual page PolicyKit.conf(5) for file format –>

<config version=“0.1”>

<match user=“bam”>
<return result=“yes”/>
</match>

</config>

  1. In SUSE, my Thunderbird profiles.ini is located at:
    /home/bam/.thunderbird/profiles.ini . I modified its contents to:

[General]
StartWithLastProfile=1

[Profile0]
Name=default
IsRelative=1
Path=linkToWindowsFolder

and in the same folder I created a symbolic link called linkToWindowsFolder using this command format from a terminal:

ln -s <path to thunderbird email folder on windows HD> linkToWindowsFolder

In my case the command was:

ln -s /media/disk/‘Documents and Settings’/brian/‘Application Data’/Thunderbird/Profiles/29tj1xya.default linkToWindowsFolder

be sure to enclose folder names containing spaces with single quotes or linux will get confused.

2

Hi
Try linking the directory rather than the profile…

–
Cheers Malcolm °¿° (Linux Counter #276890)
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 11 (x86_64) Kernel 2.6.27.29-0.1-default
up 5 days 17:58, 2 users, load average: 0.04, 0.10, 0.13
GPU GeForce 8600 GTS Silent - CUDA Driver Version: 190.18

3

Do you mean linking the thunderbird folder in Windows to .thunderbird in SUSE?

Yes, that would be easier. I wanted to “confine” the access to strictly necessary only. There are some Windows specific things in my folder. Call me paranoid… :wink:

4

On Sat, 26 Sep 2009 15:56:01 GMT, traderbam
<traderbam@no-mx.forums.opensuse.org> wrote:

>
>Do you mean linking the thunderbird folder in Windows to .thunderbird in
>SUSE?
>
>Yes, that would be easier. I wanted to “confine” the access to strictly
>necessary only. There are some Windows specific things in my folder.
>Call me paranoid… :wink:

Alternatively you could install wine (and winedoors) and run MSWin
Thunderbird in wine.