Jumping ship

[cr]

For the past few years I've been using Kmail under Gnome. I just installed
the 'latest' versions with Debian Squeeze. On starting kmail from the
command line (ssh'd in a terminal window from my laptop, that's why) I noticed
a lot of messages about akonadi. Googling showed it's some sort of system-
wide database that Kmail2 uses. A frantic and furious search showed that my
Maildir files are all still there. So if Kmail 1.13 still uses Maildir why's
it loading Akonadi?

Be that as it may, at some point Debian Stable will (presumably) include
Kmail2 at which point all my mailfiles will get converted to some cryptic
format that nothing else can read. So I should switch to something else
first.

Question is, what? Which current mailreaders use Maildir?
I tried Balsa but it felt a bit clunky and I couldn't persuade it to send
messages so I reverted to Kmail for now.
Evolution I think uses Mbox. Apparently so does Thunderbird. I'm not so
keen on ginormous files even if they are in ASCII. All it takes is one
corrupt read or write or delete and there goes all your messages.

Claws-mail apparently uses a text-based file-based relative of Maildir called
MH. I might have to try that. (From Wikipedia on MH: "MH follows the
Unix philosophy of write programs that do one thing and do it well. Write
programs to work together. Write programs to handle text streams, because that
is a universal interface (Doug McIlroy)." My thoughts exactly.)

Any others? I don't need or want a calendar, or an appointments book, or an
organiser, I just want a mailreader/writer. Kmail 1.13 is fine. (Can you
hear me, KDE? Thought not).

cr

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[Patrick Connolly]

Somewhere about Wed, 30-Nov-2011 at 08:44PM +1300 (give or take), cr wrote:

[...]

|>
|> Be that as it may, at some point Debian Stable will (presumably)
|> include Kmail2 at which point all my mailfiles will get converted
|> to some cryptic format that nothing else can read. So I should
|> switch to something else first.

|> Question is, what? Which current mailreaders use Maildir?
|> I tried Balsa but it felt a bit clunky and I couldn't persuade it to send
|> messages so I reverted to Kmail for now.
|> Evolution I think uses Mbox. Apparently so does Thunderbird. I'm

I don't think Thunderbird uses vanilla Mbox -- maybe it's raspberry.
At least I can't read its mail with mutt after Thunderbird has done its
fiddling.


|> not so keen on ginormous files even if they are in ASCII. All it
|> takes is one corrupt read or write or delete and there goes all
|> your messages.

I've never had that problem in 15 years with mutt (and before that,
elm). It's such a simple file format, it's easy to fix up (even if a
few messages are lost). Messages are separated in a simple way that
even I can spot.


|>

|> Claws-mail apparently uses a text-based file-based relative of
|> Maildir called MH. I might have to try that. (From Wikipedia on
|> MH: "MH follows the Unix philosophy of write programs that do one
|> thing and do it well. Write programs to work together. Write
|> programs to handle text streams, because that is a universal
|> interface (Doug McIlroy)." My thoughts exactly.)

That's why I use mutt to read and write. I use procmail to filter.
Bit old fashioned but I like it like that. I have to use Outlook at
work and I find it tedious by comparison.


|> Any others? I don't need or want a calendar, or an appointments
|> book, or an organiser, I just want a mailreader/writer. Kmail 1.13
|> is fine. (Can you hear me, KDE? Thought not).
--
___ Patrick Connolly
{~._.~}
_( Y )_ Good judgment comes from experience
(:_~*~_:) Experience comes from bad judgment
(_)-(_)


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[cr]

Post by Patrick Connolly
[...]
|> Be that as it may, at some point Debian Stable will (presumably)
|> include Kmail2 at which point all my mailfiles will get converted
|> to some cryptic format that nothing else can read. So I should
|> switch to something else first.
|>
|> Question is, what? Which current mailreaders use Maildir?
|> I tried Balsa but it felt a bit clunky and I couldn't persuade it to
|> send messages so I reverted to Kmail for now.
|> Evolution I think uses Mbox. Apparently so does Thunderbird. I'm
I don't think Thunderbird uses vanilla Mbox -- maybe it's raspberry.
At least I can't read its mail with mutt after Thunderbird has done its
fiddling.

That was just the impression I got after a Google - admittedly it's hard to
find out for sure what format many readers use, just by Googling. They seem
quite reticent about it.

Post by Patrick Connolly
|> not so keen on ginormous files even if they are in ASCII. All it
|> takes is one corrupt read or write or delete and there goes all
|> your messages.
I've never had that problem in 15 years with mutt (and before that,
elm). It's such a simple file format, it's easy to fix up (even if a
few messages are lost). Messages are separated in a simple way that
even I can spot.

Well, a few weeks ago Kmail crashed. Restarted it, showed 7500 new
messages(!) and crashed with a segfault - due to partition full. (Easily
fixed that). The emails were all automated 'Message undeliverable' bounces of
a phishing spam message "Your account suspended" from "Suntrust
(***@orcon.net.nz)". Yeah some spambot forged my name in the 'from' field.
Webmail showed (eventually) another 18,800 in my ISP's server, which I
downloaded and deleted in batches of ~800 as they were coming in (quickest way
to get rid of them). I wouldn't have felt so confident about simultaneously
writing to and deleting stuff from a Mbox file (that had just survived a
segfault). I assume the worst that can happen with Maildir is a few
individual files (messages) might get damaged - I'm no expert but I'd rely on
ext3 getting its file operations right more than kmail (or any other program)
not getting its file address pointers scrambled under heavy loading.

But I do agree Mbox's format is a good thing, though.

Post by Patrick Connolly
|> Claws-mail apparently uses a text-based file-based relative of
|> Maildir called MH. I might have to try that. (From Wikipedia on
|> MH: "MH follows the Unix philosophy of write programs that do one
|> thing and do it well. Write programs to work together. Write
|> programs to handle text streams, because that is a universal
|> interface (Doug McIlroy)." My thoughts exactly.)
That's why I use mutt to read and write. I use procmail to filter.
Bit old fashioned but I like it like that. I have to use Outlook at
work and I find it tedious by comparison.

Wow. I bet you use emacs for editing too. (Or vi, he adds hurriedly,
covering his bets). {grin}

Let's say that, had I been introduced to email in the early days when GUI
programs were slow and heavy (on the hardware then), I would probably be quite
happy using a text-based mailreader. I did use mc for file management for
quite a while until Nautilus got fast enough to be more convenient.

But I've got used to a GUI mailreader (first one I used at home was Pegasus
Mail before I found Linux) so I'm not looking to lose the GUI - I just want a
fairly uncomplicated one.

Outlook - I don't like the way it fiddles with the format of messages, whether
displaying them or storing them.

Post by Patrick Connolly
|> Any others? I don't need or want a calendar, or an appointments
|> book, or an organiser, I just want a mailreader/writer. Kmail 1.13
|> is fine. (Can you hear me, KDE? Thought not).

cr

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[Alexander Taler]

Wow. I bet you use emacs for editing too.

I use emacs for reading my mail.
--
hsh: The {Human|Happy|History} shell http://www.nongnu.org/hsh/
DEvelopment REFined - Enabling your software team - http://deref.co.nz/
PGP: ID: 0x23DC453B FPR: 42D0 66C2 9FF8 553A 373A B819 4C34 93BA 23DC 453B
Ironic humor dragged down all the twilight minarets he reared . . .


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[cr]

Post by Alexander Taler

Wow. I bet you use emacs for editing too.

I use emacs for reading my mail.

I hasten to add I wasn't meaning to sound snarky, just slightly surprised and
impressed that command-line is still in use.

If it sounded sarcastic to anybody I do apologise - wasn't meant that way.

cr



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[Volker Kuhlmann]

Post by cr
For the past few years I've been using Kmail under Gnome. I just installed
the 'latest' versions with Debian Squeeze. On starting kmail from the
command line (ssh'd in a terminal window from my laptop, that's why) I noticed
a lot of messages about akonadi.

The personal information stuff has been revamped, I expect to the better
but haven't yet had a close look. Akonadi has always been running. The
system is used to keep track of appointment, events, reminders, todo
lists and whatnot. I doubt it is used to also store the content of the
actual emails. There kmail uses a 1-email-per-file storage, or
alternatively mbox. I find the calendar etc quite good actually, and
it's independent of the email (unlike outhouse). Crank up korganizer and
you'll see - email is just one of the options.

I don't find the much-maligned mbox to be a problem, and it is efficient
storage, much(!) more so than maildir. The performance hit is no bigger
than maildir, and kmail proves that. The potential security risk can be
relatively easily dealt with (qed: procmail, mutt). In 20 years I've
never had a file-problem related to mbox. It's reliable (qed: mutt).
It is however true that a lot modern gui mail clients don't grok mbox
properly. That problem is with the client, not mbox. Whenever I need a
mail client that absolutely just works and shows me the content of file
X, I crank up mutt. All the gui stuff is a waste of time for that.

Thunderbird uses mbox. Its mbox files are read by mutt. However what
doesn't work is that importexporttools plugin, and though I've told its
author months ago how to trivially fix it he's obviously not capable.
The problem here is in the "From " line, which the plugin creates with
time zone offset and name (both not permissable, and the year in the
wrong place (it needs to be at the end of the line, like the American
default output of date). Easily fixed with a text editor, but of course
annoying. Alternatively move/copy all the mails to be exported into one
of tb's local(!) directories under ~/.thunderbird/, that can be opened
with mutt -f.

Post by cr
Any others? I don't need or want a calendar, or an appointments book, or an
organiser, I just want a mailreader/writer. Kmail 1.13 is fine. (Can you
hear me, KDE? Thought not).

Of course, upgrading your mail client majorly without a full backup of
your email is just dumb ;-) And that holds for any gui client. Funny,
the real programs like mutt never have that problem.

You might want to verify first whether kmail really stores its emails
any differently, and whether it's just the extra lafaffel. I recently
read a description of how to turn all that off - drats, I forgot to note
where.

I gave up looking for a decent gui client that just works all the time.
kmail is the least annoying for me.

HTH,

Volker

[cr]

Post by Volker Kuhlmann

Post by cr
For the past few years I've been using Kmail under Gnome. I just
installed the 'latest' versions with Debian Squeeze. On starting kmail
from the command line (ssh'd in a terminal window from my laptop, that's
why) I noticed a lot of messages about akonadi.

The personal information stuff has been revamped, I expect to the better
but haven't yet had a close look. Akonadi has always been running. The
system is used to keep track of appointment, events, reminders, todo
lists and whatnot. I doubt it is used to also store the content of the
actual emails. There kmail uses a 1-email-per-file storage, or
alternatively mbox. I find the calendar etc quite good actually, and
it's independent of the email (unlike outhouse). Crank up korganizer and
you'll see - email is just one of the options.

Current kmail does, but I've read that Kmail2 uses Akonadi. Now what format
Akonadi adopts for its file storage I don't know.

I prefer to keep my functions separate, so I don't need a calendar integrated
with email (for personal use, this is). (Just as I almost never use a word
processor at home, any text I want to write is either emails (as this one), or
plain ASCII in a text editor, or HTML for web pages. So my requirements are
quite different from office use).

Post by Volker Kuhlmann
I don't find the much-maligned mbox to be a problem, and it is efficient
storage, much(!) more so than maildir. The performance hit is no bigger
than maildir, and kmail proves that. The potential security risk can be
relatively easily dealt with (qed: procmail, mutt). In 20 years I've
never had a file-problem related to mbox. It's reliable (qed: mutt).
It is however true that a lot modern gui mail clients don't grok mbox
properly. That problem is with the client, not mbox. Whenever I need a
mail client that absolutely just works and shows me the content of file
X, I crank up mutt. All the gui stuff is a waste of time for that.

I instinctively shy away from writing into the middle of huge files (as Mbox
does) - I'm quite willing to accept that software writers have got Mbox
thoroughly sorted by now.

Post by Volker Kuhlmann
Thunderbird uses mbox. Its mbox files are read by mutt. However what
doesn't work is that importexporttools plugin, and though I've told its
author months ago how to trivially fix it he's obviously not capable.
The problem here is in the "From " line, which the plugin creates with
time zone offset and name (both not permissable, and the year in the
wrong place (it needs to be at the end of the line, like the American
default output of date). Easily fixed with a text editor, but of course
annoying. Alternatively move/copy all the mails to be exported into one
of tb's local(!) directories under ~/.thunderbird/, that can be opened
with mutt -f.

Post by cr
Any others? I don't need or want a calendar, or an appointments book,
or an organiser, I just want a mailreader/writer. Kmail 1.13 is fine.
(Can you hear me, KDE? Thought not).

Of course, upgrading your mail client majorly without a full backup of
your email is just dumb ;-) And that holds for any gui client. Funny,
the real programs like mutt never have that problem.

True. Which is why I like Maildir (or Mbox) for being in a fairly common
format that lots of stuff can read.

I current have a little script to invoke kmail, which first copies all new files
in its mail store to a duplicate directory in another partition on another
drive. So when kmail starts all the previous session's emails (except
deleted ones) get copied. So I should only lose one day's emails if
something goes horribly wrong e.g. the drive crashes.

Post by Volker Kuhlmann
You might want to verify first whether kmail really stores its emails
any differently, and whether it's just the extra lafaffel. I recently
read a description of how to turn all that off - drats, I forgot to note
where.

So far as I can tell by looking at my mail files, the current kmail (1.13.5)
stores its files by default in Maildir format, I think. Certainly mine
(mostly) are, when I find them (the pointer to where they're kept is well
hidden deep in the config files). It stores some legacy folders as Mbox.
Which is exactly as you said, of course :)

Post by Volker Kuhlmann
I gave up looking for a decent gui client that just works all the time.
kmail is the least annoying for me.
HTH,
Volker

I agree, about the current kmail. But I'm highly suspicious of Akonadi. If
it turns out Akonadi uses some sort of Maildir / Mbox format I may well decide
to accept it.

Basically, if I suddenly adopt some totally different OS or mail client for
some currently un-foreseeable reason, I want to be able to read / salvage all
my old data without undue grief.

cr

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[Volker Kuhlmann]

Post by cr
Current kmail does, but I've read that Kmail2 uses Akonadi. Now what format
Akonadi adopts for its file storage I don't know.

I don't know what Akonadi does exactly, but I don't have your automatic
assumption that just because kmail uses akonadi, it suddenly stores its
emails in akonadi, mysql, some other database, or its own proprietary
format. Afterall kmail has used akonadi in previous versions too. And
like I said it must be possible to turn all that extra stuff off for
those who just want to use email.

Volker

[Nick Rout]

Post by Volker Kuhlmann

Current kmail does, but I've read that Kmail2 uses Akonadi.  Now what format
Akonadi adopts for its file storage I don't know.

I don't know what Akonadi does exactly, but I don't have your automatic
assumption that just because kmail uses akonadi, it suddenly stores its
emails in akonadi, mysql, some other database, or its own proprietary
format. Afterall kmail has used akonadi in previous versions too. And
like I said it must be possible to turn all that extra stuff off for
those who just want to use email.

If OP wants to keep his email client-proof, he should run a mail
server with imap to the client. Then if the client does some bizarre
thing with it's local store, the original and definitive store on the
server remains intact (but of course should be backed up in case the
client accidentally does something like delete everything.

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[Steve Holdoway]

Post by Nick Rout
If OP wants to keep his email client-proof, he should run a mail
server with imap to the client. Then if the client does some bizarre
thing with it's local store, the original and definitive store on the
server remains intact (but of course should be backed up in case the
client accidentally does something like delete everything.

+1.

Dump (the standard setup of) POP, and this problem disappears. And you
get the freedom to access your mail from any device that you so choose.

And when your lappie gets stolen, you don't lose it all.

Steve

[Jaco]

Post by Steve Holdoway
+1.
Dump (the standard setup of) POP, and this problem disappears. And you
get the freedom to access your mail from any device that you so choose.

People still use POP?
:p

On a related note to an earlier post, I've helped a few folks migrate
from a local POP account to an IMAP setup.

(1st step, backup, backup, back)
In your preferred mail client, in addition to you local POP store,
simply add your preferred IMAP account.
Simply drag & drop your mail & folders from your POP account to your
IMAP account - may take a bit of time to upload, but generally this
works a charm. Metadata should also be retained (depending on your client)

Another nice feature of IMAP is IMAP-IDLE (depending on
client/server-capabilities), which allows for near-instant "push mail"

- J

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[Jim Cheetham]

I use offlineimap to keep a Maildir in sync with upstream, and then I
can use any frontend I like locally (currently sup).

-jim

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[cr]

Post by Jaco

Post by Steve Holdoway
+1.
Dump (the standard setup of) POP, and this problem disappears. And you
get the freedom to access your mail from any device that you so choose.

People still use POP?
:p
On a related note to an earlier post, I've helped a few folks migrate
from a local POP account to an IMAP setup.
(1st step, backup, backup, back)
In your preferred mail client, in addition to you local POP store,
simply add your preferred IMAP account.
Simply drag & drop your mail & folders from your POP account to your
IMAP account - may take a bit of time to upload, but generally this
works a charm. Metadata should also be retained (depending on your client)
Another nice feature of IMAP is IMAP-IDLE (depending on
client/server-capabilities), which allows for near-instant "push mail"
- J

I'll keep that in mind if I decide to leave Kmail/POP. It now appears Kmail2
still uses Maildir, with Akonadi managing it, so it probably complies with my
prejudices about mail formats being retrievable by 'any editor' down the
track. So I'll probably stick with Kmail for a while, since I like the
'look and feel'. And look at Imap if Kmail strikes problems.

Thanks for the info.

cr




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[Cliff]

Post by cr

Post by Jaco

Post by Steve Holdoway
+1.
Dump (the standard setup of) POP, and this problem disappears. And you
get the freedom to access your mail from any device that you so choose.

People still use POP?
:p
On a related note to an earlier post, I've helped a few folks migrate
from a local POP account to an IMAP setup.
(1st step, backup, backup, back)
In your preferred mail client, in addition to you local POP store,
simply add your preferred IMAP account.
Simply drag& drop your mail& folders from your POP account to your
IMAP account - may take a bit of time to upload, but generally this
works a charm. Metadata should also be retained (depending on your client)
Another nice feature of IMAP is IMAP-IDLE (depending on
client/server-capabilities), which allows for near-instant "push mail"
- J

I'll keep that in mind if I decide to leave Kmail/POP. It now appears Kmail2
still uses Maildir, with Akonadi managing it, so it probably complies with my
prejudices about mail formats being retrievable by 'any editor' down the
track. So I'll probably stick with Kmail for a while, since I like the
'look and feel'. And look at Imap if Kmail strikes problems.

IMAP is not an alternative to Kmail (or TBird or whatever). IMAP is a
different method of getting mail from the server. You can use pretty
much any client. The big advantage is that it leaves the mail on the
server which makes backing up just an extension of backing up the
server. Of course you can download your mail locally as well if you use
IMAP but why would you? As someone said "Does anyone still use POP?".

Cheers,

Cliff


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[cr]

Post by Steve Holdoway

Post by Nick Rout
If OP wants to keep his email client-proof, he should run a mail
server with imap to the client. Then if the client does some bizarre
thing with it's local store, the original and definitive store on the
server remains intact (but of course should be backed up in case the
client accidentally does something like delete everything.

+1.
Dump (the standard setup of) POP, and this problem disappears. And you
get the freedom to access your mail from any device that you so choose.
And when your lappie gets stolen, you don't lose it all.
Steve

Actually there are no mail files on my lappie, and no mailreader (well, there's
probably a default one but I never use it).

My mail all resides on my desktop downstairs (where the boss has banished all
big tin boxes with the covers off and wires dangling out of them), I typically
ssh into it from the comfort of the lounge. That way I don't have any
problems syncing emails.

(If I'm away I just use webmail on my ISP's servers).

cr

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[Daniel Lawson]

Post by Nick Rout

Post by Volker Kuhlmann
I don't know what Akonadi does exactly, but I don't have your automatic
assumption that just because kmail uses akonadi, it suddenly stores its
emails in akonadi, mysql, some other database, or its own proprietary
format. Afterall kmail has used akonadi in previous versions too. And
like I said it must be possible to turn all that extra stuff off for
those who just want to use email.

If OP wants to keep his email client-proof, he should run a mail
server with imap to the client. Then if the client does some bizarre
thing with it's local store, the original and definitive store on the
server remains intact (but of course should be backed up in case the
client accidentally does something like delete everything.

I'll second this. He can even run the IMAP server locally on his desktop
computer if he wants to, using fetchmail to pull mail from his ISP and
populate his local IMAP server.

There are plenty of IMAP servers that use maildir formats: cyrus has a
slightly custom one with an occasional headache involving mailbox list
reconstruction/reindexing; courier is fairly straightforward; I've not
used dovecot but lots of people in this list have. You then get your
choice of mail client, and get to pick it based on usability features
rather than worrying about what it does in the background.

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[cr]

Post by Volker Kuhlmann

Post by cr
Current kmail does, but I've read that Kmail2 uses Akonadi. Now what
format Akonadi adopts for its file storage I don't know.

I don't know what Akonadi does exactly, but I don't have your automatic
assumption that just because kmail uses akonadi, it suddenly stores its
emails in akonadi, mysql, some other database, or its own proprietary
format. Afterall kmail has used akonadi in previous versions too. And
like I said it must be possible to turn all that extra stuff off for
those who just want to use email.
Volker

Okay, I've done a lot more Googling. It looks as if
(1) Kmail (and other Akonadi - using apps) won't run without it.
(2) Akonadi is just a database/indexing system of sorts

In particular, according to this page:
http://blogs.kde.org/node/4503

"Good, but where is my data if not in the database? This depends on what kind
of data we are talking about.

1) E-mail:......
In case of POP3, the mails is stored immediately after download in a local
maildir folder. The actual place of the folder depends on your configuration,
it can be just as $HOME/Mail, as $HOME/kde./share/apps/kmail/ or
$HOME/.local/share/.local-mail (for new installations)."

(Brief excerpt only quoted)

So it looks as if the original page I found gave me a misleading impression.
If Akonadi is just an add-on indexing service I'll quite happily live with
that.

cr

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[Paul Campbell]

Post by cr
For the past few years I've been using Kmail under Gnome. I just installed
the 'latest' versions with Debian Squeeze. On starting kmail from the
command line (ssh'd in a terminal window from my laptop, that's why) I
noticed a lot of messages about akonadi. Googling showed it's some sort
of system- wide database that Kmail2 uses. A frantic and furious search
showed that my Maildir files are all still there. So if Kmail 1.13 still
uses Maildir why's it loading Akonadi?

I went through this a couple of months ago by choosing to switch to Kubuntu
OO. In general OO is a decidedly better KDE release than previous ones but
this area - kmail transitions - it's pretty much a disaster .... as you've
found out.

KDE have moved all the mail handling into Akonadi - there's a migration app
that's supposed to handle moving your mail files into the internal data base -
it fails under a number of situations.

In my case I was a (very!) early KDE adopter - KDE 1.0 - I had a mixture of
maildir and mbox files.

To fix your saved maildir files you can simply download akonadi console, run it
(note the warning) and choose Local Files->Configure->Configure Natively and set
the name of the directory where you keep your mail files

Or there's a akonadiconsole option "Kmail maildir" in akonadiconsoile use Add-

Post by cr
Kmail Maildir - I haven't tried this - I think it allows you to add multiple

directories

Mbox files can be imported with akonadi console by choosing Add->Mbox and
naming the mbox file

----

What caught me were my sent-mail and outbox - they're 'special' - in my case
they were mbox format files (from KDE 1) problem- the KDE migration app just
threw up its hands and I couldn't send mails for ages before I tried this - if
I'd known I'd have copied these files somewhere else and deleted them before

I can't describe the fix for this problem, there was a lot of floundering
around, gnashing of teeth and tearing of hair - I didn't keep records - it
involves moving the files somewhere else and hacking on the akonadi DB through
akonadi console - then reimporting the data using a temporary akonadi mbox

Paul

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[Jethro Carr]

Post by cr
Evolution I think uses Mbox.

Historically yes, but they moved to Maildir a while ago, so any
recentish version should use it as default.

regards,
jethro

[Cliff]

Post by cr
For the past few years I've been using Kmail under Gnome. I just installed
the 'latest' versions with Debian Squeeze. On starting kmail from the
command line (ssh'd in a terminal window from my laptop, that's why) I noticed
a lot of messages about akonadi. Googling showed it's some sort of system-
wide database that Kmail2 uses. A frantic and furious search showed that my
Maildir files are all still there. So if Kmail 1.13 still uses Maildir why's
it loading Akonadi?
Be that as it may, at some point Debian Stable will (presumably) include
Kmail2 at which point all my mailfiles will get converted to some cryptic
format that nothing else can read. So I should switch to something else
first.
Question is, what? Which current mailreaders use Maildir?
I tried Balsa but it felt a bit clunky and I couldn't persuade it to send
messages so I reverted to Kmail for now.
Evolution I think uses Mbox. Apparently so does Thunderbird. I'm not so
keen on ginormous files even if they are in ASCII. All it takes is one
corrupt read or write or delete and there goes all your messages.
Claws-mail apparently uses a text-based file-based relative of Maildir called
MH. I might have to try that. (From Wikipedia on MH: "MH follows the
Unix philosophy of write programs that do one thing and do it well. Write
programs to work together. Write programs to handle text streams, because that
is a universal interface (Doug McIlroy)." My thoughts exactly.)
Any others? I don't need or want a calendar, or an appointments book, or an
organiser, I just want a mailreader/writer. Kmail 1.13 is fine. (Can you
hear me, KDE? Thought not).

Did you see this?

http://blogs.kde.org/node/4503

Cheers,

Cliff





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[cr]

Post by Cliff

Post by cr
For the past few years I've been using Kmail under Gnome. I just
installed the 'latest' versions with Debian Squeeze. On starting kmail
from the command line (ssh'd in a terminal window from my laptop, that's
why) I noticed a lot of messages about akonadi. Googling showed it's
some sort of system- wide database that Kmail2 uses. A frantic and
furious search showed that my Maildir files are all still there. So
if Kmail 1.13 still uses Maildir why's it loading Akonadi?
Be that as it may, at some point Debian Stable will (presumably) include
Kmail2 at which point all my mailfiles will get converted to some cryptic
format that nothing else can read. So I should switch to something else
first.
Question is, what? Which current mailreaders use Maildir?
I tried Balsa but it felt a bit clunky and I couldn't persuade it to send
messages so I reverted to Kmail for now.
Evolution I think uses Mbox. Apparently so does Thunderbird. I'm not
so keen on ginormous files even if they are in ASCII. All it takes
is one corrupt read or write or delete and there goes all your messages.
Claws-mail apparently uses a text-based file-based relative of Maildir
called MH. I might have to try that. (From Wikipedia on MH: "MH
follows the Unix philosophy of write programs that do one thing and do
it well. Write programs to work together. Write programs to handle text
streams, because that is a universal interface (Doug McIlroy)." My
thoughts exactly.)
Any others? I don't need or want a calendar, or an appointments book,
or an organiser, I just want a mailreader/writer. Kmail 1.13 is fine.
(Can you hear me, KDE? Thought not).

Did you see this?
http://blogs.kde.org/node/4503
Cheers,
Cliff

Hi Cliff

As will be obvious from a post I just made, I just stumbled on it myself.

Interesting, thanks for pointing it out, I wasn't looking to deprive you of
the credit.

Regards

cr


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[Cliff]

Post by cr

Post by Cliff

Post by cr
For the past few years I've been using Kmail under Gnome. I
just installed the 'latest' versions with Debian Squeeze. On
starting kmail from the command line (ssh'd in a terminal window
from my laptop, that's why) I noticed a lot of messages about
akonadi. Googling showed it's some sort of system- wide
database that Kmail2 uses. A frantic and furious search showed
that my Maildir files are all still there. So if Kmail 1.13
still uses Maildir why's it loading Akonadi?
Be that as it may, at some point Debian Stable will (presumably)
include Kmail2 at which point all my mailfiles will get converted
to some cryptic format that nothing else can read. So I should
switch to something else first.
Question is, what? Which current mailreaders use Maildir? I
tried Balsa but it felt a bit clunky and I couldn't persuade it
to send messages so I reverted to Kmail for now. Evolution I
think uses Mbox. Apparently so does Thunderbird. I'm not so
keen on ginormous files even if they are in ASCII. All it
takes is one corrupt read or write or delete and there goes all
your messages.
Claws-mail apparently uses a text-based file-based relative of
Maildir called MH. I might have to try that. (From Wikipedia
on MH: "MH follows the Unix philosophy of write programs that do
one thing and do it well. Write programs to work together. Write
programs to handle text streams, because that is a universal
interface (Doug McIlroy)." My thoughts exactly.)
Any others? I don't need or want a calendar, or an
appointments book, or an organiser, I just want a
mailreader/writer. Kmail 1.13 is fine. (Can you hear me, KDE?
Thought not).

Did you see this?
http://blogs.kde.org/node/4503

Hi Cliff
As will be obvious from a post I just made, I just stumbled on it myself.
Interesting, thanks for pointing it out, I wasn't looking to deprive
you of the credit.

No worries. It's the nature of the Internet.

Cheers,

Cliff


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[cr]

Post by Paul Campbell

Post by cr
For the past few years I've been using Kmail under Gnome. I just
installed the 'latest' versions with Debian Squeeze. On starting kmail
from the command line (ssh'd in a terminal window from my laptop, that's
why) I noticed a lot of messages about akonadi. Googling showed it's
some sort of system- wide database that Kmail2 uses. A frantic and
furious search showed that my Maildir files are all still there. So
if Kmail 1.13 still uses Maildir why's it loading Akonadi?

I went through this a couple of months ago by choosing to switch to Kubuntu
OO. In general OO is a decidedly better KDE release than previous ones but
this area - kmail transitions - it's pretty much a disaster .... as you've
found out.

I've only found this through Googling. I haven't had the experience myself
since current Debian is still using Kmail 1.13.5.

Post by Paul Campbell
KDE have moved all the mail handling into Akonadi - there's a migration app
that's supposed to handle moving your mail files into the internal data
base - it fails under a number of situations.
In my case I was a (very!) early KDE adopter - KDE 1.0 - I had a mixture of
maildir and mbox files.
To fix your saved maildir files you can simply download akonadi console,
run it (note the warning) and choose Local Files->Configure->Configure
Natively and set the name of the directory where you keep your mail files
Or there's a akonadiconsole option "Kmail maildir" in akonadiconsoile use
Add-

Post by cr
Kmail Maildir - I haven't tried this - I think it allows you to add
multiple

directories
Mbox files can be imported with akonadi console by choosing Add->Mbox and
naming the mbox file
----
What caught me were my sent-mail and outbox - they're 'special' - in my
case they were mbox format files (from KDE 1) problem- the KDE migration
app just threw up its hands and I couldn't send mails for ages before I
tried this - if I'd known I'd have copied these files somewhere else and
deleted them before
I can't describe the fix for this problem, there was a lot of floundering
around, gnashing of teeth and tearing of hair - I didn't keep records - it
involves moving the files somewhere else and hacking on the akonadi DB
through akonadi console - then reimporting the data using a temporary
akonadi mbox
Paul

Thanks for the info. I'll save it for when Debian moves to Kmail2.

cr

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