Icedove and Thunderbird

[Ethan Rosenberg <erosenberg@hygeiabiomedical.com>]

Dear List -

I installed Icedove and cannot get the desktop icon to work.  I would 
get a pop up asking me if I wanted to 1]open in terminal 2] view or 3] 
run. When I clicked view there was a message that it required a XFCE 
panel. I surely do NOT want XFCE as a desktop manager.  If there is a 
work-around, I'll use it.  Otherwise I'll install Thunderbird. I've 
tried this previously, downloading the tar file, extracting it and 
trying to get Thunderbird to work, with no avail.

So..
1] Is there a work-around?
2] If not, how do I install Thunderbird from the tar file?

TIA

Ethan