On 2013-01-02 18:53, Walter Bright wrote:

> The various packages are all built on Ubuntu. The OS X one failed
> because it couldn't find ruby, and ruby does not work on Ubuntu (at
> least my version of Ubuntu - there is no ruby package for it).
>
> Looks like my mistake is I should have run it on OS X.

Yeah, that's a requirement. Andrei has ported the Ruby script to shell script and created a pull request:

https://github.com/D-Programming-Language/installer/pull/10

-- 
/Jacob Carlborg

On 2013-01-02 21:37, Walter Bright wrote:

> Windows has gotten better in this regard, that is true.
>
> But it's still bizarre that, with Thunderbird, you can export/import the
> address book, but not the mail database.
>
> A welcome improvement would be to have a button to export/import the
> whole farkin' thing.
>
> Instead, when I installed TB on my laptop, I had to open the account
> settings on my desktop, and screen by screen, manually copy the data
> into my laptop TB install. A long and tedious and error-prone process,
> as there are endless screens and config settings.

Copying the thunderbird profile directory should do the trick:

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_folder_-_Thunderbird

I've created a symlink for the newsgroups messages pointing to dropbox to get synchronization.

-- 
/Jacob Carlborg

On 01/02/2013 03:37 PM, Walter Bright wrote:
> But it's still bizarre that, with Thunderbird, you can export/import the
> address book, but not the mail database.

Why would you need to? If your mail store is IMAP, just let it rebuild.

> A welcome improvement would be to have a button to export/import the
> whole farkin' thing.
>
> Instead, when I installed TB on my laptop, I had to open the account
> settings on my desktop, and screen by screen, manually copy the data
> into my laptop TB install. A long and tedious and error-prone process,
> as there are endless screens and config settings.


scp -rp ~/.thunderbird <target machine>

will shove your whole TB directory to the new box.

unison and/or rsync will keep it synced. I prefer unison because it's bidi.

I don't have any suggestions for automagic cloud sync because I don't like automagic cloud sync.


-- 
Matthew Caron, Software Build Engineer
Sixnet, a Red Lion business | www.sixnet.com
+1 (518) 877-5173 x138 office

On 1/2/2013 12:47 PM, Jacob Carlborg wrote:
> On 2013-01-02 21:37, Walter Bright wrote:
>
>> Windows has gotten better in this regard, that is true.
>>
>> But it's still bizarre that, with Thunderbird, you can export/import the
>> address book, but not the mail database.
>>
>> A welcome improvement would be to have a button to export/import the
>> whole farkin' thing.
>>
>> Instead, when I installed TB on my laptop, I had to open the account
>> settings on my desktop, and screen by screen, manually copy the data
>> into my laptop TB install. A long and tedious and error-prone process,
>> as there are endless screens and config settings.
>
> Copying the thunderbird profile directory should do the trick:
>
> http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_folder_-_Thunderbird

I've suffered trying to figure out that page many times. It's exactly why a button is needed.

On 1/2/2013 12:56 PM, Matthew Caron wrote:
> On 01/02/2013 03:37 PM, Walter Bright wrote:
>> But it's still bizarre that, with Thunderbird, you can export/import the
>> address book, but not the mail database.
>
> Why would you need to? If your mail store is IMAP, just let it rebuild.

I don't store email on the server, I store it locally.


>> A welcome improvement would be to have a button to export/import the
>> whole farkin' thing.
>>
>> Instead, when I installed TB on my laptop, I had to open the account
>> settings on my desktop, and screen by screen, manually copy the data
>> into my laptop TB install. A long and tedious and error-prone process,
>> as there are endless screens and config settings.
>
>
> scp -rp ~/.thunderbird <target machine>
>
> will shove your whole TB directory to the new box.

Doesn't work on Windows. Anyhow, the TB documentation never says this. Nor does that help you if you just want to move account settings over rather than the entire 10 years worth of mail. (I generally limit what I put on my laptop, in case I lose it!)

What is the rationale behind import/export of address books, and not doing that for anything else?

On 1/2/2013 12:36 PM, Jacob Carlborg wrote:
> On 2013-01-02 19:51, Walter Bright wrote:
>
>> I've been avoiding upgrading Ubuntu, because the last time I did that
>> the installer trashed everything. Lost a day on that one.
>
> That's what backups are for :)
>

Having backups doesn't work so good when the versions and settings change with a new OS.

On Wednesday, January 02, 2013 13:18:02 Walter Bright wrote:
> What is the rationale behind import/export of address books, and not doing that for anything else?

I don't know. kmail has basically the same problem. It drives me nuts that you can't export accounts. It makes setting up a new machine a royal pain when you have something like a dozen different e-mail addresses to set up. So, I always try and copy the config files, but I've only figured out which ones those are via trial and error, and sometimes things get screwed up enough that you just have to start from scratch again, which is no fun at all. Being able to export accounts would be a _huge_ gain.

- Jonathan M Davis

On Wed, 2013-01-02 at 11:24 -0800, Walter Bright wrote: […]
> It does when you don't remember what goes in the host file, what you had installed, redoing all the ssh keys, etc. It also deleted all my virtual boxes, I never did figure out how to get them working again. I simply gave up on virtual boxes as more trouble than they're worth.

Host file problem should self-organize on reinstall.

What you had isntalled is a question of regularly doing:

	dpkg --get-selections > /some/place/you/remember/on/backup/machine

SSH keys can be a problem.

I don't do virtual machines, but deletion sounds like it is actually another problem.  Virtual machines are great for training rooms.

> It also nuked all my mail and calender data, which is why I don't use Ubuntu for mail or calender anymore, nor do I use it for music (same thing happened).

Over-reaction to the wrong issue. Evolution is entirely fine for mail and calendar, I use it all the time on Debian and Fedora.  Playing music with rhythmbox also works fine on Debian and Fedora. Also with mediatomb as a server.

Where were your backups. I can vapourize a Debian/Fedora dual boot machine and have it up and running with the last backup up state in 2 hours. In the meantime I can be working on another machine and then have everything sync up in a matter of minutes.  Losing mail and data and OS configuration sounds like a lack of proper sys admin approach.

> The only actual trouble I had was the installer assumed a screen larger than the one I had, and insisted on putting the [next] button off the bottom of the screen. Argh.

I'd agree there, I had similar problems with the Ubuntu installer, which was turned into something horrible, but may have since evolved to be something usable. I have never had any such problems with Debian or Fedora installers.

> P.S. I like calendar programs, but on Windows and Ubuntu, upgrading the OS inevitably deletes the calendar database. None of those frackin' calendar programs ever deign to tell me where they store their frackin' database, so I can back it up. I really, really don't understand mail and calendar programs that make it difficult to back up the data. I quit using Outlook Express because it stored the mail database in a hidden directory. WTF? Thunderbird is better, but not much.

I think we can blame DOS and then Windows for enshrining the idea that all configuration information should be stored in C:\ and never replicated anywhere.

Sadly the XDG filestore specification is good but has some glaring problems replicating configuration and cache files across machines.


-- 
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On 1/2/2013 1:29 PM, Jonathan M Davis wrote:
> On Wednesday, January 02, 2013 13:18:02 Walter Bright wrote:
>> What is the rationale behind import/export of address books, and not doing
>> that for anything else?
>
> I don't know. kmail has basically the same problem. It drives me nuts that you
> can't export accounts. It makes setting up a new machine a royal pain when you
> have something like a dozen different e-mail addresses to set up. So, I always
> try and copy the config files, but I've only figured out which ones those are via
> trial and error, and sometimes things get screwed up enough that you just have
> to start from scratch again, which is no fun at all. Being able to export
> accounts would be a _huge_ gain.

The most miserable of all is Microsoft Outlook Express, which stores all the info in hidden directories that are down a long chain of paths filled with directory names that are GUID identifiers.

Then, the mail files themselves are in some secret binary format.

I had some back and forth with MS support on that, as I was trying to restore my OE email from a backup image. They were genuinely mystified why I would ever want to save/restore my email data. I told them I was never going to use OE again because of that issue, which baffled them further.

Fortunately, TB was able to automatically import the OE mail files. Why TB cannot automatically import TB files is another baffling mystery.

On Wednesday, 2 January 2013 at 20:38:36 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
> Windows has gotten better in this regard, that is true.
>
> But it's still bizarre that, with Thunderbird, you can export/import the address book, but not the mail database.
>
> A welcome improvement would be to have a button to export/import the whole farkin' thing.
>
> Instead, when I installed TB on my laptop, I had to open the account settings on my desktop, and screen by screen, manually copy the data into my laptop TB install. A long and tedious and error-prone process, as there are endless screens and config settings.

Portable software is your friend.

http://portableapps.com/apps/internet/thunderbird_portable