sharing email on a pc

linuxhippy · 2005-06-17 14:32:57

I want to set up my friends P3/550 MHz pc to dual boot Win98 and Arch Linux. How would I set it up so that he could read and compose the same email in both systems?

max_sipos · 2005-06-17 14:41:33

I assume that you mean that you want to have the local inbox the same on both systems. I assume you should be able to set up Thunderbird on both Windows and Linux, set the Windows partitition automounted at each boot and set Thunderbird to read the local inbox from a directory on the Windows disk. That is all under the assumption that Windows and Linux Thunderbird binaries have the same data format for local mailbox.

Kern · 2005-06-17 17:59:42

easy ways:

--Use your isp's email system and set each of your clients to not remove msgs from the server. Save Sent messages there, not locally. ISP may not allow this, depends how they work.

or

-- Use Web mail like Hotmail / Yahoo or your ISP's if they also run a webmail access system.

My ISP is a bonus allowing both, so i can access mail from any PC / client / country. (Security considerations taken into account)

hard way:

set up your mailbox on the Windows Fat32/Vfat partition and point something like Thunderbird at it from each system.

Some info here

phrakture · 2005-06-17 18:14:04

Kern wrote:

hard way:
set up your mailbox on the Windows Fat32/Vfat partition and point something like Thunderbird at it from each system.

That's the one I would suggest... add a small vfat partition and store all mail there... vfat is the only fs that can be natively read and written on both systems.

Michel · 2005-06-17 22:30:53

Heya,

if you're friend's ISP offers imap, there is no problem. Imap has features taht helps you when travelling between computers/OS's/different programs. Everything is kept/synced with the server (mails you read, which not, which are deleted, which folders you have).

Thunderbird's pop-support emulates this a little bit I think. There is an option that mails are only deleted when you delete them from the server. Ofcourse if you have a mail in one program, ... and you delete the mail in another program, it will be still in the first program I think using pop3. That wouldn't be the case with imap ... should test that, but am quite sure. That's one of the purposes of imap as far as I know.

If possible you can maybe also share the contact-calender, although that is not included in imap I think. Maybe his ISP offers something like this for him. I've seen a button to import csv-records or something like that with my isp, but ldap-support would be better.

I use imap myself and I like it. Next time I'll try offline-imap-support. When I use the webmail-interface of the isp, it is al synchronised with my other programs when I use them.

Ofcourse the ISP has to support IMAP or pop3. I don't know why more ISP's don't offer it (I think not a lot of them offer it, can be wrong). Maybe because people aren't asking for it/don't know about it.

Webmail is so popular because you can access it easily (normally) from everywhere (I suppose). If you combine webmail with imap, all programs will be synchronised. There are maybe also other features that imap has. I'm not sure, but one of them is sharing folders with other users I think.

Like mentionned inearlier posts, a shared mail-folder can also be used, although imap would be easier maybe ... no hassle at all normally. This method has teh advantage that the same content doesn't haev to be downloaded twice and he doesn't have to have network-connectivity to have the mail in the other application/OS.

greetings,

Michel

Arch Linux

#1 2005-06-17 14:32:57

sharing email on a pc

#2 2005-06-17 14:41:33

Re: sharing email on a pc

#3 2005-06-17 17:59:42

Re: sharing email on a pc

#4 2005-06-17 18:14:04

Re: sharing email on a pc

#5 2005-06-17 22:30:53

Re: sharing email on a pc

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