Thunderbird installed, Icedove offered for upgrade <SOLVED>

[DanielR]

I have installed Thunderbird 45.8.0~linuxmint1+betsy. Update Manager just came up to offer me Icedove 1:45.8.0-3~deb8u1. However in the description it states: "Thunderbird is an mail client suitable for free distribution. ....". Oh, before I forget to mention, I have enabled the Jessie-Backports. Otherwise no additional repositories are enabled, just the Mint and Debian standard repositories for Betsy/Jessie.

What is wrong here? Why do I get Icedove offered instead of Thunderbird? Frankly, I don't want to dump Thunderbird in favour of something else. Is Icedove just the Debian branding of Thunderbird or something else? At least in the description of Icedove it states " ... Thunderbird ... ". Has the enablement of Jessie-Backports something to do with this rather odd named update offer?

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~ $ inxi -r
Repos:     Active apt sources in file: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/additional-repositories.list
           deb http://ftp.debian.org/debian jessie-backports main
           Active apt sources in file: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/official-package-repositories.list
           deb http://packages.linuxmint.com betsy main upstream import
           deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian jessie main contrib non-free
           deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian jessie-updates main contrib non-free
           deb http://security.debian.org jessie/updates main contrib non-free
           deb http://www.deb-multimedia.org jessie main non-free
           deb http://extra.linuxmint.com betsy main

[chrisuk]

Icedove is just Thunderbird rebranded by Debian - type apt policy thunderbird in the terminal, you'll see it's now the latest version:

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$ apt policy thunderbird
thunderbird:
  Installed: 1:45.8.0-3~deb8u1
  Candidate: 1:45.8.0-3~deb8u1
  Version table:
 *** 1:45.8.0-3~deb8u1 0
        500 http://security.debian.org/ jessie/updates/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     45.8.0~linuxmint1+betsy 0
        500 http://packages.linuxmint.com/ betsy/import amd64 Packages

[DanielR]

Icedove is just Thunderbird rebranded by Debian - [...]

Well, if one trusts Wikipedia, the differences seem to be a bit more extensive:

Icedove
Icedove logo
Main article: Mozilla Thunderbird

Icedove is an e-mail client distributed by the Debian project. With Icedove, the Debian project aims to provide a remastered version of the Mozilla Thunderbird e-mail client. The codebase has not yet kept synchronization with the upstream software development from Thunderbird, so has remained more like a fork than originally planned.[citation needed]

Icedove is based on Mozilla Thunderbird, but is made entirely of free software. By running its own plugin-finder service[8] Icedove removes the proprietary artwork and non-free plug-ins used by the Mozilla Corporation. [...]

Quite frankly, I installed Thunderbird for a purpose and don't want to upgrade to something different. In my book a proper update complies to the naming convention of the original package thus guaranteeing (if you trust the source) the update originates from the same source branch as the originally installed software.

BTW, just one post above mine seems to be the first complaining about this Thunderbird => Icedove "upgrade" going sour.

PS.

After having read this page on Debian and Thunderbird: https://wiki.debian.org/Thunderbird , I get the impression that I better shouldn't accept the Icedove package as update for Thunderbird until Debian sorts out their own internal confusion.

[chrisuk]

I updated this morning... Thunderbird starts and works as expected... look at the screenshot below. I've no Icedove installed after the update... have you? If not, it was just a mislabelled (but otherwise correct) update.

Screenshot at 2017-04-21 07-29-55.jpg

[DanielR]

I updated this morning... Thunderbird starts and works as expected... look at the screenshot below. I've no Icedove installed after the update... have you? If not, it was just a mislabelled (but otherwise correct) update.

I haven't updated yet because of the different naming of the package.

[Habitual]

viewtopic.php?f=238&t=244164&sid=f5c9a6 ... 6#p1305936 may help.

[DanielR]

viewtopic.php?f=238&t=244164&sid=f5c9a6 ... 6#p1305936 may help.

Yes and no. Yes, it does support my suspicion that migrating to Icedove is a bad idea and should be avoided. According to my book, this supposed update still qualifies as migration.

No, it doesn't answer my question as to why do I get the Icedove "update" from the Debian Jessie repositories offered when I have the Thunderbird package from the Mint LMDE2 Betsy repositories installed. Have the Mint folks dropped the Thunderbird support in LMDE2 or is Debian suffering from a slight screw-up during the process of moving from Icedove back to Thunderbird?

[Crewp]

I think it's a Debian mistake, the update broke Thunderbird, so I downgraded, and right clicked on the Icedove update to ignore. All is well again.

[DanielR]

I think it's a Debian mistake, the update broke Thunderbird, [...]

For exactly this reason I have skipped this "update" and started asking questions. Unfortunately the Icedove package doesn't come with a change log entry, at least Update Manager doesn't show any change log information for this package.

PS.

Just checked again and this time Update Manager did show a change log for the Icedove package. However, it contained only Icedove package related bug- and security-fix information but no hint for it being the officia Thunderbird update package.

[grizzler]

It doesn't look like a 'Debian mistake', as the thunderbird package contains a README.Debian file dated 8 April, which documents the (upcoming, at that time) changes. Apparently nobody at Mint read that or realised the implications.
It has to do with changing the names of the (binary) icedove packages (back) to thunderbird. The latest icedove package is empty (transitional) and only has one dependency: thunderbird. The changelog is in that package, by the way, but it still contains the icedove name, probably because the Debian source package is still called icedove.

Any distribution using the Debian repositories and also providing its own version of thunderbird is bound to have issues, if this new package has a higher version number. Mint is going to have to make up its mind whether they want to keep providing their own version and they're going to have to be right on top of any changes coming in from the Debian repositories if they do. Seems like a bad idea. They could do something 'smart' with version numbers, I suppose. Not sure whether that's a good idea either...

It's curious the Update Manager would offer icedove, though. The new thunderbird package doesn't depend on it.
Edit
Oh wait, its control file has Replaces and Provides lines specifying icedove. I guess that would explain it.

[DanielR]

I have now forced the version of thunderbird to 52.0 from the Mint Betsy repositories but the Icedove 1:45.8.0-3~deb8u1 update is still offered through update manager. Until this mess is sorted, I have set this update to ignore. It would be nice if someone from the Mint package maintainers could shed some light on this issue

[killer de bug]

Did someone inform Clem that there are issues with the Icedove package from Debian? If not, it may take time before they learn it and sort it out.

[DanielR]

Did someone inform Clem that there are issues with the Icedove package from Debian? If not, it may take time before they learn it and sort it out.

I have submitted a bug report at Launchpad. This should get his attention.

[Dr. Octagon]

Meanwhile just change the shortcut to /usr/lib/thunderbird/thunderbird and everything works as usual.

Btw.
I've got thunderbird with the update and not icedove, but prior tb didn't start up with the old shortcut in the menu... until I change the shortcut (see above).

Cu
Dr. Octagon

[clem]

Hi everybody,

As of today the issue shouldn't happen anymore.

It's a bit technical but I'll try to explain.

The "import" section of the repositories is dedicated to packages which are imported by Linux Mint and which do not exist upstream. These packages are given a priority of 500 which matches upstream and 3rd party repositories. So typically, this was the case with Thunderbird which didn't exist in Debian until recently and which was added/imported by Mint.

The "upstream" section of the repositories is dedicated to packages which are maintained by Linux Mint but which exist upstream. In technical jargon, these are "pinned" packages and their priority is 700.

For some reason Debian decided to rename icedove back into thunderbird, which resulted in that package name being provided both by betsy/import and jessie and to bump its version number using an epoch (i.e. from 45.8 to 1:45.. This is why this icedove update suddenly disguised itself as being a newer thunderbird.

Since Debian now provides "thunderbird" we had to decide whether to just drop our version or to start pinning it. It's not clear how often this will be updated upstream so for now we're still maintaining it. Thunderbird is now provided via the "upstream" section of our repository with a priority of 700.

You can check which version you're using and which versions are available by typing:

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apt policy thunderbird

As it is now you should be pointing at version 52.0.1~linuxmint1+betsy.

Check the versions of all your thunderbird packages with:

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dpkg -l | grep thunderbird

You should have a thunderbird package, and maybe one or two thunderbird l10n packages (translations for your languages).

If you're using the wrong version, you can "downgrade" these packages with:

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apt install thunderbird=52.0.1~linuxmint1+betsy thunderbird-l10n-en-gb=52.0.1~linuxmint1+betsy thunderbird-l10n-fr=52.0.1~linuxmint1+betsy

Note: In the command above, I assumed you had en-gb and fr l10n packages... replace these appropriately, you'll know which packages you have thanks to the dpkg command I posted.

[killer de bug]

Great explanation. Thanks Clem.

[DanielR]

Clem, thanks a million for the explanation. The icedove package is no longer offered as update to Thunderbird (just checked after I have "un-blacklisted" it in Update Manager).

[...]
Note: In the command above, I assumed you had en-gb and fr l10n packages... replace these appropriately, you'll know which packages you have thanks to the dpkg command I posted.

You assumed almost correctly, I have just the en-gb package installed (aside from Thunderbird of course).

[Crewp]

Thanks Clem, that explanation helped.

[Ak_LM_Man]

Thank You , Clem. Yours and the others' input and advice is exactly why Linux Mint is the BEST distro ever..... (IMHO)