Re: Jumping ship

On Wednesday 30 November 2011 22:33:10 Volker Kuhlmann wrote:
> On Wed 30 Nov 2011 20:44:12 NZDT +1300, cr wrote:
> > 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).

> 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.

> 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.
> 
> > 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.

> 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  :)
 
> 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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