Links open in a new window.

It’s important to backup the .mozilla-thunderbird folder, in my instance, I had set up a family member’s computer with Ubuntu 9.10 and was using Mozilla Thunderbird 2.0.0.24.  The newest Ubuntu uses Mozilla Thunderbird 3 and it’s not obvious how to get it to take the old data… I’m still experimenting with doing this, but running into issues with indices rebuilding. I don’t have time right now to get this straightened out, so going back to the old version on Ubuntu 10.04.

Easy way is to go to synaptic and uninstall Thunderbird.

Restore your backed-up .mozilla-thunderbird folder to your home directory, make sure your permissions are properly set.

Surf to ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/thunderbird/releases/2.0.0.24/linux-i686/ and download your preferred version. I downloaded ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/thunderbird/releases/2.0.0.24/linux-i686/en-US/thunderbird-2.0.0.24.tar.gz

Uncompress the file…
$ tar -xvzf thunderbird-2.0.0.24.tar.gz

I went here http://packages.ubuntu.com/jaunty/libs/ and downloaded libstdc++5

$ sudo dpkg -i libstdc++5_3.3.6-17ubuntu1_i386.deb

Ready to test…
$ /usr/local/thunderbird

In the Gnome menu bar, right-click and click on “Add to Panel”
click on “Custom Application Launcher”
“Add”
For name I put in “Mozilla Thunderbird”
for command I put in “/usr/local/thunderbird/thunderbird”
for comment I put “mozilla thunderbird”
click on the icon on the left side as you’re in “Launcher Properties”
navigate to /usr/local/thunderbird/icons
select an icon
close.
then click on “OK”