Shopping for an email client

jwcxz · 2010-01-18 21:18:36

IgnorantGuru wrote:

For an Okular replacement, I went with epdfview in extra. It's not as fancy as Okular but it does the job decently. I tried as many PDF viewers as I could find and epdfview was the winner.

I like the idea of using one document viewer with multiple plugins for different document types (pdf, dvi, etc.). That's one of the reasons that I stuck with Okular, which also has nice markup support and supports the table of contents. I've tried using evince for dvi files, but there's a bug in it currently that will cause it to crash when figures are included.

Also, I assume you know you don't need to run KDE just for kmail.

Yup, but so far, I've just given in and used KDE in its entirety (shutting off some useless services); it doesn't slow down my desktop, but it probably would do so to my laptop.

Back to the topic:
Just for the heck of it, I tried re-alpine again today and managed to get almost everything set up except for one crucial thing: PGP. Both Claws and Kmail allow me to quickly specify some configuration options that will allow me to automatically sign every message that I send out. I have different keys for each of the different email accounts that I use. When I send a message, the signature is attached as a file (e.g. signature.asc).

After a good two hours of trying (including packaging re-alpine and packaging an external program named "topal"), I was still unable to get alpine to do this. It forced me to either use inline PGP or a multipart message that still refused to store the signature as an attachment. Both of those solutions are extremely annoying; I just want the signature to be unobtrusive and alpine won't do that for me.

How unfortunate. Maybe I'll try mutt at some point.

IgnorantGuru · 2010-01-19 04:17:49

jwcxz wrote:

I like the idea of using one document viewer with multiple plugins for different document types (pdf, dvi, etc.).

Yeah I mainly just view or print the occassional PDF file. epdfviewer is okay but not feature rich.

Both of those solutions are extremely annoying; I just want the signature to be unobtrusive and alpine won't do that for me.

I know exactly how you feel. One time I set up a 64 bit linux (back when that was more tricky) only to find that my printer had no compatible driver... all that work and to come so close, but have one critical show-stopper spoil it! I now always try the printer driver first. In fact I did that when I tried Arch - I was so relieved it worked.

Perhaps some of the alpiners here can tell you how to do it. I'm going to have a look at alpine just for the fun of it - who knows I might end up using it. I'm a bit GUI spoiled now though.

anrxc · 2010-01-19 20:14:42

jwcxz wrote:

I just want the signature to be unobtrusive and alpine won't do that for me.

Topal works, all its modes of operation are OK.

Edit: I forgot, this should help any future Topal users http://sysphere.org/~anrxc/j/archives/2 … index.html

Last edited by anrxc (2010-01-19 20:20:20)

jwcxz · 2010-01-19 23:10:00

anrxc wrote:

jwcxz wrote:
I just want the signature to be unobtrusive and alpine won't do that for me.
Topal works, all its modes of operation are OK.
Edit: I forgot, this should help any future Topal users http://sysphere.org/~anrxc/j/archives/2 … index.html

I used Topal (and built an Arch package for it) and even patched alpine to get MIME working properly, however, it makes my email very ugly adding visible text around the signed message. I don't want that to occur.

But even if I were to live with that, the sheer number of dialogs that you have to go through is ridiculous. It's very hackish--not at all an elegant solution that I was hoping for.

anrxc · 2010-01-20 14:41:01

First you claim Topal doesn't work, now something else... no it does not add any "crazy" text, it obeys the specifications.

It's very hackish--not at all an elegant solution that I was hoping for.

It is a crude hack. Unfortunately Alpine development ceased so there is no way to improve parts needed for Topal, let alone that its functionality be included. The re-alpine project promises to include support for multipart signed and encrypted e-mail, based on Topal.

Last edited by anrxc (2010-01-20 14:41:35)

IgnorantGuru · 2010-02-16 01:58:13

Well, just thought I would follow up... the horrible results with the upgrade to KDE 4.4 gave me the push I needed to drop the rest of my KDE apps, which I'm in the process of. I ended up giving Claws a try and I REALLY like it. I think it is an excellent replacement for Kmail. I had to change some of my local mail handling to accommodate the mbox format instead of maildir, but that was no big deal. And it does support sendmail as-is. As for HTML, it converts the HTML to plain text, which I think will be good enough for me. If not I might give the plugin a try. Overall Claws is very well thought-out and capable. It has some notable improvements over Kmail too.

Anyway thanks again for all the ideas... I still might give Alpine a look too. Right now I'm wrestling with replacing one last KDE app, then kdelibs is OUTA THERE! I don't know what the KDE devs are drinking these days, but I don't want any of whatever it is. For those who still like KDE, to each his/her own. I used to think highly of KDE but my opinion of it has really changed - mostly due to KDE4. Oh well, change is good.

Misfit138 · 2010-02-16 02:04:36

I have KDE on 4 machines and the upgrades all went smoothly. I was quite pleased actually.
The only difference that seems worth mentioning is the different KDM theme and the fact that I get a few more notifications on the lower-right.

IgnorantGuru · 2010-02-16 02:17:05

Misfit138 wrote:

I have KDE on 4 machines and the upgrades all went smoothly. I was quite pleased actually.
The only difference that seems worth mentioning is the different KDM theme and the fact that I get a few more notifications on the lower-right.

Well the upgrade itself didn't give me too much trouble - although I hit that phonon is missing issue. It's the changes in KDE 4.4 that pushed me over the edge. They make Akonadi really required now, nepomuk started indexing my system even though I don't have Strigi, they added virtuoso to soprano (another server running that I don't need), and something they did created an error in Krusader - deleting the nepomuk executables somehow cured that. Oh and suddenly phonon is required, which I hate too. It was just the final straw type of thing - gave me the push I needed. Of course everyone's preferences are different. But watch it - I firmly believe they are attempting to merge Windows and Linux with KDE, and all that that implies. Be afraid, be very afraid.

Now I just have to figure out what to do about Krusader - the last KDE app left on my system. I can't find anything that pleases me - tried Thunar, PCManFM, BSC, EmelFM2. I can't say I think much the FMs in Linux. Krusader had its problems too. What is so hard about twin pane, tabs, and user-definable actions? I'm seriously thinking of writing my own or modding PCManFM so it at least includes USER ACTIONS - give me a break, I would think this would be standard in any FM.

But I'm very happy with Bluefish2 (AUR) as a replacement for Kate, and Claws of course.

kosmiciatakuja · 2010-02-16 10:33:46

I'm currently using kmail but looking for alternatives. After the 4.4.0 KDE upgrade the kmail takes huge amounts of memory. Right now, about 2h after it started it uses 757 of RESident memory (not shared!) - it will grow to about 1.5gig before evening comes, and that's something I just can't justify for email. Also I have nepomuk and strigi killed, as most people I imagine, as they also took about a gig of resident memory together. Yes, I have a lot of memory, but not for email clients and things that I don't use!

I used claws for a couple of months before and it was somewhat cool, but during that time I tried kmail and it was cooler (back in the days...). Sylpheed as far as I understand is something claws was forked off, and after comparing I chose claws. I guess they forked for a reason

Balsa doesn't fulfill all my needs and I simply can't stand alpine because I can't stand nano and they're somewhat similar. I've been a vim lover for years

And don't get me started on thunderbird, I used it for a year or two a while back but it was the slowest of them all. My poor 2.16GHz dual core could barely keep up with it!

So, having rejected all popular GUI clients now, my only option is to give mutt another try. I tried it before but I didn't have enough time and patience to dig through all the configuration, hooks, folders, shortcuts, html mail, clickable urls, gpg config, etc. It takes ages, but I guess I'm gonna have to dig through this time since there's simply no other option!

If you like vim and LnF apps, give mutt a spin. You might like it. If you have a couple of days to spare for working up a good configuration for yourself

skanky · 2010-02-16 11:11:55

There are loads of existing muttrc's out there that make a good first stab at configuration (inc. generic mailboxes so you don't even need to configure that). I used one and slowly changed it over the course of several months every time I hit an itch. So I wouldn't let the massive configuration potential put you off.

I keep trying to decide whether or not to switch to nmh though.

kosmiciatakuja · 2010-02-16 12:23:13

Thanks skanky, that's actually a very good idea. BTW, what's nmh? I'll check that out too

kosmiciatakuja · 2010-02-16 12:56:24

By the way, if anybody finds this post and my rant above about kmail taking >500mb of resident memory, I think I found the problem. For some reason it loads all your mail into resident memory. Since I had ~500mb mail folder, it took up 500mb of my memory. I can only guess what happens to guys that have like 10g of mail. Anyhow, I deleted most of my mail, restarted kmail (compacted folders by the way) and now it takes 50mb, which is perfectly reasonable for a kde app I guess

skanky · 2010-02-16 14:05:20

kosmiciatakuja wrote:

Thanks skanky, that's actually a very good idea. BTW, what's nmh? I'll check that out too

http://www.nongnu.org/nmh/

The main issue with it is that development/maintenance is sporadic, to say the least - so some stuff like mime handling isn't really ideal (there may be workarounds). Wish I'd found it ten years ago, though. They may be looking into applying for a GSOC if anyone's interested though (esp. in organising it).

It's nearly enough to make me learn C - if I didn't have kids.

vacant · 2010-02-16 17:04:26

I've used KDE for years and really like kmail, digikam, amarok and k3b. However, my HP 6735s laptop is supposedly a business model and has HD3200 integrated graphics. The fglrx driver struggled to display 720P HD video to my TV, the radeon driver works fine but the laptop temperature is 10C higher.

So..... I use the fglrx driver most of the time and I set up a small arch partition to boot the radeon driver and vlc when I want to sit down and watch a film. Obviously I didn't need KDE so installed openbox and LXDE.

While playing with that, I installed compix and emerald for some whizzy effects.

All good so far, but come 2010 and digikam now decides it "depends" on a desktop globe. What with all the semantic desktop stuff (I have a simple desktop and I'm fine thinking about "applications" rather that "tasks" and I know where my stuff is), I decided to see what could replace my beloved kde apps. I now longer need to burns DVDs so I just replaced amarok with guayadeque, digikam (photo viewing only) with mirage and kmail with claws-mail.

I had around 1500 emails in around 6 maildir folders and wrote a small script to copy them to MH format (afterwards I found a script on line). Setting up address book (export from kmail), filters and processing was easy.

Well, after a couple of weeks I'm happy. No immediate plans to revert to KDE but I'll keep an eye on it. I didn't need to switch but as I had time, I thought I'd experiment out of my comfort zone.

Anyway, apologies for the rambling post: claws mail

Last edited by vacant (2010-02-16 17:05:54)

skanky · 2010-02-16 17:16:11

Incidentally, nmh is based on MH which is where the MH mail storage format comes from.
mutt supports mbox, MH and mailbox formats, so could conceivably be used overlapping with other mail clients.

Mektub · 2010-02-16 19:47:54

IgnorantGuru wrote:

.....It's the changes in KDE 4.4 that pushed me over the edge. They make Akonadi really required now, nepomuk started indexing my system even though I don't have Strigi, they added virtuoso to soprano (another server running that I don't need), ......It was just the final straw type of thing - gave me the push I needed. Of course everyone's preferences are different.....
Now I just have to figure out what to do about Krusader - the last KDE app left on my system.

Happened to me too. Now, after being a many-year user of Kmail I really have an easy way of replacing it, since
lately I use only my Gmail account through the browser.

So my mail client is reduced to a backup role.

So I use fetchmail/procmail that deposits all the mail in several files under /var/spool/mail, and the client only needs
to read local mail.

Claws is a possibility but for the moment I am testing Evolution (Yep!) mainly for one reason: it synchronizes its
address book with the one from Gmail. Its nice to also have an address book backup.

A nice thing would be to separate the Gmail mails by label, but I haven't found any fetcher that does that, could
be that it isn't technically possible.

So, for the time being, fetchmail+Evolution for archiving purposes.

I use IceWM, and the only packages I have from KDE are those needed by Krusader.

IgnorantGuru, if you find a good replacement, please mail me.

Mektub

Arch Linux

#26 2010-01-18 21:18:36

Re: Shopping for an email client

#27 2010-01-19 04:17:49

Re: Shopping for an email client

#28 2010-01-19 20:14:42

Re: Shopping for an email client

#29 2010-01-19 23:10:00

Re: Shopping for an email client

#30 2010-01-20 14:41:01

Re: Shopping for an email client

#31 2010-02-16 01:58:13

Re: Shopping for an email client

#32 2010-02-16 02:04:36

Re: Shopping for an email client

#33 2010-02-16 02:17:05

Re: Shopping for an email client

#34 2010-02-16 10:33:46

Re: Shopping for an email client

#35 2010-02-16 11:11:55

Re: Shopping for an email client

#36 2010-02-16 12:23:13

Re: Shopping for an email client

#37 2010-02-16 12:56:24

Re: Shopping for an email client

#38 2010-02-16 14:05:20

Re: Shopping for an email client

#39 2010-02-16 17:04:26

Re: Shopping for an email client

#40 2010-02-16 17:16:11

Re: Shopping for an email client

#41 2010-02-16 19:47:54

Re: Shopping for an email client

Board footer