i should be working (but i'm fixing my computer).

Thunderbird and OpenSuse developers don't seem to be able to get their act together, but I figured out how to get Thunderbird 3.1.4 running.

...

In an earlier report, I indicated I remain puzzled as to how it is better to use OpSu build rather than the download direct from Mozilla, since the Mozilla build can self-update.

To indulge in a digression, I have been mulling a bit  about the entire linux/library system.  This came about as I loaded the alpha2 version of Haiku into a vm -- or rather, loaded their vm directly into VirtualBox, which definitely is a streamlined approach to installing.  I can see that this whole "appliance thing" may have a workable future.

(Not that I could actually discover a  useful use for Haiku.)  But, the Haiku development forums hold a long discussion about system philosophy, with some developers accusing Linux of being slow and bloatware like.  Part of the discussion was whether they should go the "shared library" route, or maintain their packages as discrete and functional.

I intend to load Haiku onto on of my now spare (but elderly) computers -- though I'm not certain I will learn anything more on an underpowered computer than from a VM.  Except, however, as Haiku does not have Guest Additions, it's not possible to access peripherals -- not the least of which being actual disk access outside the VM -- which makes the VM install little more than a curiosity.  The download vm is 600 megs, or so, which doesn't include much disk space for actual working or data files.

Let me undigress.  So, after the OpSu 11.3 upgrades, I had to roll back my Thunderbird installs to 3.0, which was highly inconvenient.  Then on my 32 bit machine I found I was able to run the Mozilla version of 3.1.4.  So, I assumed it would also work on my 64 bit machine, but I didn't immediately have time to install.

When I got around to it, the answer was no, it doesn't.  So, I ran Thunderbird from a console to see if there were any error messages.  Yep, couldn't find libdbus-glib.1.so.2.  So, I made a link from the appropriate file in /lib64 to /lib.

Then Thunderbird complained this was  the wrong (X64) class build.  So ... it seems the Linux version of Thunderbird is a 32 bit build.

So, I found in YAST that it is possible to install the 32 bit version of dbus-glib.  I did this and got Thunderbird to work.  The only weirdness I see now is that it complains of my google-talk add-on that it is the X64 version.  However, I haven't actually added the google-talk add-on to Thunderbird, I don't kow why it is trying to load it!  (I used it in Chrome to see if it would work -- and it does.)

I have, however, added Google Contacts and Google Connector to my Lightning add-on and now I have the full calendar functioning as I wanted (and why it was important to me to get 3.1.4 running.)