[Users] Claws Mail 4.3.0. / 3.21.0 Unleashed!!!

[Ralf Mardorf]

On Thu, 2024-06-13 at 18:19 +0200, skoric at uns.ac.rs wrote:
> Some time ago I installed an old version from Debian buster repository
> (3.17.8). Now it makes me wonder whether it would be possible to compile a
> new version that would install over the old one (and preserve existing
> data etc.) Any possibility for that? I understood that 3.x.x will not be
> updated anymore.
> 

Hi Misko,

you can build a claws-mail package that does replace all the split
Debian, Ubuntu etc. related claws-mail packages by doing the following.

Get the build dependencies by running

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get build-dep claws-mail

Then uninstall all the claws-mail related packages. Related to
https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/claws-mail this could be:

claws-mail
claws-mail-acpi-notifier
claws-mail-address-keeper (1 bugs: 0, 1, 0, 0)
claws-mail-archiver-plugin
claws-mail-attach-remover
claws-mail-attach-warner
claws-mail-bogofilter (2 bugs: 0, 0, 2, 0)
claws-mail-bsfilter-plugin
claws-mail-clamd-plugin (1 bugs: 0, 0, 1, 0)
claws-mail-dillo-viewer (1 bugs: 0, 0, 1, 0)
claws-mail-doc
claws-mail-extra-plugins
claws-mail-fancy-plugin
claws-mail-feeds-reader
claws-mail-fetchinfo-plugin
claws-mail-i18n
claws-mail-keyword-warner
claws-mail-libravatar
claws-mail-litehtml-viewer
claws-mail-mailmbox-plugin
claws-mail-managesieve
claws-mail-multi-notifier
claws-mail-newmail-plugin
claws-mail-pdf-viewer
claws-mail-perl-filter
claws-mail-pgpinline (3 bugs: 0, 1, 2, 0)
claws-mail-pgpmime (2 bugs: 0, 2, 0, 0)
claws-mail-plugins
claws-mail-python-plugin
claws-mail-smime-plugin
claws-mail-spam-report
claws-mail-spamassassin (2 bugs: 0, 0, 2, 0)
claws-mail-tnef-parser (1 bugs: 0, 0, 1, 0)
claws-mail-tools (1 bugs: 0, 0, 1, 0)
claws-mail-vcalendar-plugin (3 bugs: 0, 2, 1, 0)
libclaws-mail-dev

Then clone the git repository by running

git clone https://git.claws-mail.org/readonly/claws.git 

Then you need to checkout the wanted GTK2 branch, regarding
https://git.claws-mail.org/?p=claws.git;a=commit;h=c98c630fe0937ac91a391a210c1ad9097e7df0be
you seem to need to run the following for 3.21.0:	

cd claws/
git checkout c98c630fe0937ac91a391a210c1ad9097e7df0be

Then you need to build it by running

make clean

./autogen.sh --build=$HOSTTYPE-foobar-linux-gnu --prefix=/usr --disable-static --enable-crash-dialog

You probably need to replace "foobar" by "debian" and I'm not sure if the options are still ok nowadays.

Then get the version by running:

sh version

It should be 3.21.0 .	

Then build claws by running

make

Then build a package by running

sudo checkinstall

You can manually edit it:

0 -  Maintainer: [ Misko <skoric at uns.ac.rs> ]
1 -  Summary: [ A GTK+ based e-mail client - git checkout ]
2 -  Name:    [ claws-mail-git ]
3 -  Version: [ 3.21.0 ]

4 -  Release: [ 1 ]
5 -  License: [ GPL3 ]
6 -  Group:   [ checkinstall ]
7 -  Architecture: [ amd64 ]
8 -  Source location: [ claws ]
9 -  Alternate source location: [  ]
10 - Requires: [  ]
11 - Provides: [ claws-mail ]
12 - Conflicts: [  ]
13 - Replaces: [  ]

You don't need to add something to the empty [  ], but at least the
"Name" and "Provides" is required, the above is how I edited it in the
past.

Then install the package. This package does include everything. The
original claws-mail from Debian, Ubuntu etc. repos is split into several
packages, but now everything is provided by a single package.

It's a long time ago that I build Claws GTK2 or GTK3 packages this way,
therefore everything is without guarantee.

Before you run Claws from your package, make a backup of your home
directory. In rare cases it can happen that a new software version
converts data so that it is no longer backwards compatible and a
downgrade would therefore not be possible. Hence it's better to update
your home directory.

This isn't the only way to build and install a new version of Claws.

Regards,
Ralf