Install Thunderbird Daily binaries from mozilla

Thunderbird Daily can be installed in most distros directly from their repos but more often than not it is outdated (they usually disable automatic updates). this can be circumvented by installing the binary directly from mozilla. the automatic update will then be enabled.

download the latest binary from http://ftp.mozilla.org and verify the download (checksum and gpg - for gpg you need mozilla's key)

as of the time of writing the following script downloaded the binary and verified it:

[code language="bash"]
$ mkdir ~/{bin,software}
$ cd ~/software
$ wget http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/thunderbird/nightly/latest-comm-central/thunderbird-57.0a1.en-US.linux-x86_64.{tar.bz2,checksums,checksums.asc}
$ tar xvf thunderbird-57.0a1.en-US.linux-x86_64.tar.bz2
$ mv thunderbird thunderbird-daily
[/code]

the verification process is not as smooth as it could be. this will do a sha512 checksum test

[code language="bash"]
$ grep thunderbird-57.0a1.en-US.linux-x86_64.tar.bz2 thunderbird-57.0a1.en-US.linux-x86_64.checksums | grep sha512 - | awk '{print $1, $4}' - | sha512sum -c -
[/code]

import pgp key from mozilla. then do signature check

[code language="bash"]
$ gpg2 --verify thunderbird-57.0a1.en-US.linux-x86_64.checksums{.asc,}
[/code]

Update script in total

[code language="bash" collapse="true" title="thunderbird-updater.sh"]
#!/bin/zsh

RELEASE="57.0a1"

# download files
wget -q http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/thunderbird/nightly/latest-comm-central/thunderbird-${RELEASE}.en-US.linux-x86_64.{tar.bz2,checksums,checksums.asc}

# check sha512 hash
grep thunderbird-${RELEASE}.en-US.linux-x86_64.{tar.bz2,checksums} | grep sha512 - | awk '{print $1, $4}' - | sha512sum -c -

# check gpg signature
gpg2 --verify thunderbird-${RELEASE}.en-US.linux-x86_64.checksums{.asc,}

# extract, move, cleanup
tar jxf thunderbird-${RELEASE}.en-US.linux-x86_64.tar.bz2
mv thunderbird-daily{,OLD}
mv thunderbird{,-daily}
rm thunderbird-${RELEASE}.en-US.linux-x86_64.{tar.bz2,checksums.asc,checksums}
[/code]

Now, create a file link:

[code language="bash"]
$ ln -s $HOME/bin/thunderbird-daily $HOME/software/thunderbird-daily/thunderbird-bin
[/code]

download the daily icon (no direct download link available): assets.mozilla.org

create a desktop entry (include your home folder path!):

[code language="bash" collapse="true" title="desktop entry"]
$ cat $HOME/.local/share/applications/thunderbird-daily.desktop
[Desktop Entry]
Version=1.0
Name=Thunderbird Daily
Comment=Send and receive mails
GenericName=Mail Client
Exec=/home/paul/bin/thunderbird-daily %u
Icon=thunderbird-daily.png
Terminal=false
Type=Application
MimeType=message/rfc822;x-scheme-handler/mailto;application/x-xpinstall;
StartupNotify=true
Categories=Network;Email;
Keywords=web;browser;internet;
Actions=ComposeMessage;OpenAddressBook;

[Desktop Action ComposeMessage]
Name=Write new message
Exec=/home/paul/bin/thunderbird-daily -compose

[Desktop Action OpenAddressBook]
Name=Open address book
Exec=/home/paul/bin/thunderbird-daily -addressbook
[/code]