This tip comes from Postbox user Patrick Dunn, who was able to get Postbox running on Ubuntu Linux. The following steps were not tested by Postbox, but we wanted to share what worked for one user. Thanks Patrick!
Here's how to install Postbox under Wine in Linux (Ubuntu/Fedora - whatever). I'll address this using Ubuntu just because it and the derivatives like Mint are the most popular with Fedora being right there too.
For Ubuntu
- From the Software Center (click on the shopping bag icon in the Unity bar) type in Wine in the search box.
- The package that will come up that should be installed is Microsoft Windows Compatibility Layer (meta-package) - wine. Click on that and click on the Install button.
- Once installed, download the Windows version of Postbox.
- Right click on that Postbox installer in the Downloads folder from Nautilus and choose Wine Windows Program Loader.
- In a couple of seconds the installer will come up and follow the usual procedure to install the program.
- Once the program is installed, tell it to run and it will run. An icon will be placed on the desktop as well.
Notes:
- When running a Wine program has a Wine glass for an icon instead of the Postbox icon.
- To run from Unity, hit the Windows key and type in Postbox and the icon will display, click on that and that will run the program too.
- The program itself is installed in the .wine/drive_c/Program Files/Postbox folder.
- The profile is installed in the .wine/drive_c/users/<username>/Application Data/Profiles folder.
- The "Toast" for new email will display in the lower left corner.
- A "New email" icon will display in the top bar in Unity. Because the icon is not transparent users may want to switch Unity themes in the Appearance control panel to Radiance so it blends better - I've attached a screenshot and yes you do see a Quicken and Filemaker Pro 8 icon - I run those under Wine as well.
- To attach files the attach box defaults to the .wine/drive_c folder, hit the up arrow until you are in the /home/<username> folder to find the file you want to attach.
- To move your Thunderbird profile to Postbox under Wine copy from .thunderbird folder the Profiles folder and profiles.ini to the ./wine/drive_c/users/<username>/Application Data/Profiles folder. You may have to adjust configuration and reinstall extensions that only work in Postbox like Lightning etc.
- When one wants to click on a link it's best to right click and copy the link and paste it into their web browser under linux.
I'm typing this email from Postbox in Wine in Ubuntu 12.04 - it works normally just like when I use it under Windows.
Now with all this you're probably wondering why I do this? It's simple, security and I'm a Unix geek. I use Postbox on my Macbook Pro for work and personal and it's far more refined than Thunderbird - especially the Gmail integration which I use heavily for home and work. Although I wish Topics just worked with Gmail labels too. Also I do use it in Windows too on a windows machine I have and of course in Wine. I still wish it was a native linux port but this is good enough for me at this point. I am running this on AMD X2-3800 2.0Ghz Dell pc with 4gb of ram (a 6+ year old machine) and it runs great. I also do the same thing on a Dell dual core Pentium laptop from 2009 as well.