ChromeOS | Linux Development Environment | Install Thunderbird onto a Chromebook

• Open the Linux Development Environment menu
• From within the menu select Penguin to open a Linux Terminal windows
• First we are going to check for update by typing:

sudo apt update

• As we did not have any updates, there was no need to perform an update. However, if you need to update the applications and services in your instance of Linux you will need to type:

sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

• When we are once again presented with the command prompt we can install Thunderbird

Note: In order to make installing Linux applications into Linux easier, we use a Software Management Utility called Flatpak. In order for you to use the following commands you first need to install Flatpak into your instance of Linux. – ChromeOS | Linux Development Environment | Install Flatpak onto a Chromebook

• At the command prompt type:

sudo flatpak install flathub org.mozilla.thunderbird

• When prompted to “Proceed with these Changes to the system installation?“, type Y
• Thunderbird will now install onto your Chromebook
• When you once again see a command prompt you can exit out of the terminal window by typing:

exit

• We can now try and run the Thunderbird application. 
• In the ChromeOS app Launcher you will a folder called Linux apps which will contain any Linux applications you have installed onto your Chromebook. You should find the icon for Thunderbird here. 

Note: As most cheap Chromebooks use eMMC drives rather that SSD’s, you might find that it takes a while for the Thunderbird application to load. So this slow load speed is more a limitation of your model of Chromebook, rather than Thunderbird as an application. 

• Google support article – Setup Linux on your Chromebook
• Wikipedia – Virtual Machine
• Mozilla website – Thunderbird