Exporting Evolution address book, mail, to another machine.

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Re: [SLE] Suse 10 will not install

M.Blackmore

28 Oct 2005 28 Oct '05

12:26

I'm migrating from a slower 433mhz box running Suse 9.3 (with xfcs4 in a small amount of ram) to a "newer" 2ghz box with 10.0 (installing real soon now ..tick-tock-tick-tock). When this is done I want to migrate over the bookmarks for Firefox (easy) and the contents of Evolution (got a shared network drive to ease things). However, it doesn't look like Evolution is going to be so easy. No luser menus for export anywhere, and my level of knowledge is pretty shallow. Have I missed something? The most useful thing google showed up was a couple of scripts for exporting the contacts for thunderbird. Can't use thunderbird, for some reason it screws up totally on my email provider (which after 15yrs I don't want to adandon as it provides me with IMAP, though I have to keep the folder sizes moderate on the server, so have to periodically copy archives onto the local disks. Or the imap chokes). Seems a bit odd I can't just seamlessly move something from evolution on one box to evolution on the other - both the same version afaik tell, too. Must be other inexperienced lusers who will hit similar problems ... any "instructions" or pointers anyone can give? A How-to anywhere?

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James Ogley

28 Oct 28 Oct

12:30

New subject: [opensuse] Exporting Evolution address book, mail, to another machine.

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Seems a bit odd I can't just seamlessly move something from evolution on one box to evolution on the other - both the same version afaik tell, too.

Okay, firstly, this is the wrong list for this sort of question - you should ask on suse-linux-e@suse.com That notwithstanding, there's no need to export, just copy $HOME/.evolution across - I assume your username will be the same on the new machine. In fact, why not copy the whole of $HOME across? -- James Ogley james@usr-local-bin.org Packages for SUSE: http://usr-local-bin.org/rpms Make Poverty History: http://makepovertyhistory.org

Pete Connolly

12:40

New subject: [opensuse] Exporting Evolution address book, mail, to another machine.

On Friday 28 October 2005 13:26, M.Blackmore wrote:

...

I'm migrating from a slower 433mhz box running Suse 9.3 (with xfcs4 in a small amount of ram) to a "newer" 2ghz box with 10.0 (installing real soon now ..tick-tock-tick-tock).

<SNIP>

...

Seems a bit odd I can't just seamlessly move something from evolution on one box to evolution on the other - both the same version afaik tell, too.

I'd try copying the .evolution folder and everything beneath it in your home directory across to the new machine. Worth a go as the first option. I can't see an import from evolution options. Good luck Pete

Mozzi

12:54

New subject: [opensuse] Exporting Evolution address book, mail, to another machine.

On Friday 28 October 2005 14:40, Pete Connolly wrote:

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On Friday 28 October 2005 13:26, M.Blackmore wrote:

...
I'm migrating from a slower 433mhz box running Suse 9.3 (with xfcs4 in a small amount of ram) to a "newer" 2ghz box with 10.0 (installing real soon now ..tick-tock-tick-tock).

<SNIP>

...
Seems a bit odd I can't just seamlessly move something from evolution on one box to evolution on the other - both the same version afaik tell, too.

I'd try copying the .evolution folder and everything beneath it in your home directory across to the new machine.

I agree, I have done it on kmail and evolution. Both worked flawlessly. Just make sure to check permissions on ".evolution "before starting evolution mail client. That one had me running around for a while once :)

...

Worth a go as the first option. I can't see an import from evolution options. Copying will work, don't worry

Good luck

Pete Mozzi

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Paul Beltrani

13:15

New subject: [opensuse] Exporting Evolution address book, mail, to another machine.

On 10/28/05, Mozzi wrote:

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On Friday 28 October 2005 14:40, Pete Connolly wrote:

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On Friday 28 October 2005 13:26, M.Blackmore wrote: ...

...
Seems a bit odd I can't just seamlessly move something from evolution on one box to evolution on the other - both the same version afaik tell, too.

I'd try copying the .evolution folder and everything beneath it in your home directory across to the new machine.

I agree, I have done it on kmail and evolution. Both worked flawlessly. Just make sure to check permissions on ".evolution "before starting evolution mail client. ...

This works for the email and addressbook contents. However you'll also need to copy ${HOME}/.gconf/apps/evolution/ if you want to get all of the configuration information as well. - Paul

Pete Connolly

20:49

New subject: [opensuse] Exporting Evolution address book, mail, to another machine.

On Friday 28 October 2005 14:15, Paul Beltrani wrote:

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On 10/28/05, Mozzi wrote:

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On Friday 28 October 2005 14:40, Pete Connolly wrote:

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On Friday 28 October 2005 13:26, M.Blackmore wrote:

...

...
...
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Seems a bit odd I can't just seamlessly move something from evolution on one box to evolution on the other - both the same version afaik tell, too.

I'd try copying the .evolution folder and everything beneath it in your home directory across to the new machine.

I agree, I have done it on kmail and evolution. Both worked flawlessly. Just make sure to check permissions on ".evolution "before starting evolution mail client.

...

This works for the email and addressbook contents. However you'll also need to copy ${HOME}/.gconf/apps/evolution/ if you want to get all of the configuration information as well.

- Paul

Thanks for that Paul. As a test I transferred my .evolution and .gconf/apps/evolution/ directories from the work laptop to my home folder on the home PC and it's working perfectly. I can see why there's no import facility for Evolution to Evolution transfer - you don't need it. Cheers Pete

Kenneth Aar

30 Oct 30 Oct

09:38

New subject: [opensuse] Exporting Evolution address book, mail, to another machine.

Pete Connolly wrote:

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I can see why there's no import facility for Evolution to Evolution transfer - you don't need it.

I adamantly disagree. This is just the sort of thing that is dead easy to implement but is very obscure for newcomers to linux to find their way around. I would submit this as a usability bug to the evolution team. -- Regards Kenneth Aar

Randall R Schulz

14:29

New subject: [opensuse] Exporting Evolution address book, mail, to another machine.

Kenneth, On Sunday 30 October 2005 01:38, Kenneth Aar wrote:

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Pete Connolly wrote:

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I can see why there's no import facility for Evolution to Evolution transfer - you don't need it.

I adamantly disagree. This is just the sort of thing that is dead easy to implement but is very obscure for newcomers to linux to find their way around. I would submit this as a usability bug to the evolution team.

Are you a programmer? There are virtually no trivial but useful programs, today. And what do you mean by "I would submit...". Are you going to submit it or not? Randall Schulz -- Happy, happy KMail user

Kenneth Aar

18:19

New subject: [opensuse] Exporting Evolution address book, mail, to another machine.

Randall R Schulz wrote:

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Are you a programmer? There are virtually no trivial but useful programs, today.

Uh? Sorry, I don't understand what you are trying to say.

...

And what do you mean by "I would submit...". Are you going to submit it or not?

OK, you are right. So I have submitted a bug. See bugzilla #131515. Please add to it if you feel like it. :-) -- Regards Kenneth Aar

Randall R Schulz

22:04

New subject: [opensuse] Exporting Evolution address book, mail, to another machine.

Kenneth, On Sunday 30 October 2005 10:19, Kenneth Aar wrote:

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Randall R Schulz wrote:

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Are you a programmer? There are virtually no trivial but useful programs, today.

Uh? Sorry, I don't understand what you are trying to say.

I'm saying that while it is truly easy to proclaim "It is dead easy to implement feature X", it is not usually so easy to actually implement that feature. File format conversions are, in fact, notoriously tricky.

...

...
And what do you mean by "I would submit...". Are you going to submit it or not?

OK, you are right. So I have submitted a bug. See bugzilla #131515. Please add to it if you feel like it. :-)

Good. I'm in no position to contribute to that feature request because, as I pointed out in my previous post, I am a happy, happy KMail user and have only looked at Evolution in passing (the last time I did so, I had a 1280x1024 monitor, and Evolution had too much screen real estate tied up in extraneous stuff for my taste). Randall Schulz

Pete Connolly

20:15

New subject: [opensuse] Exporting Evolution address book, mail, to another machine.

On Sunday 30 October 2005 09:38, Kenneth Aar wrote:

...

Pete Connolly wrote:

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I can see why there's no import facility for Evolution to Evolution transfer - you don't need it.

I adamantly disagree. This is just the sort of thing that is dead easy to implement but is very obscure for newcomers to linux to find their way around. I would submit this as a usability bug to the evolution team.

Point taken. For those of us who are used to just tarring up home directories to copy to a new machine or partition it is straightforward. Maybe a trivial little 'wizard' that tars and compresses the ~/.evolution and ~/.gconf folders then tells you what is the best step to take next (scp, write to CD/DVD etc.) would be useful. Sounds like a nice little starter project for someone - I'll have a look. Cheers Pete

Ken Schneider

28 Oct 28 Oct

13:01

New subject: [opensuse] Exporting Evolution address book, mail, to another machine.

On Fri, 2005-10-28 at 13:26 +0100, M.Blackmore wrote:

...

I'm migrating from a slower 433mhz box running Suse 9.3 (with xfcs4 in a small amount of ram) to a "newer" 2ghz box with 10.0 (installing real soon now ..tick-tock-tick-tock).

When this is done I want to migrate over the bookmarks for Firefox (easy) and the contents of Evolution (got a shared network drive to ease things).

However, it doesn't look like Evolution is going to be so easy.

No luser menus for export anywhere, and my level of knowledge is pretty shallow. Have I missed something?

The most useful thing google showed up was a couple of scripts for exporting the contacts for thunderbird. Can't use thunderbird, for some reason it screws up totally on my email provider (which after 15yrs I don't want to adandon as it provides me with IMAP, though I have to keep the folder sizes moderate on the server, so have to periodically copy archives onto the local disks. Or the imap chokes).

Seems a bit odd I can't just seamlessly move something from evolution on one box to evolution on the other - both the same version afaik tell, too.

Must be other inexperienced lusers who will hit similar problems ... any "instructions" or pointers anyone can give? A How-to anywhere?

If both versions of evolution are the same try: rsync -varpltz ~.evolution/ new_machine:/home/user_name/.evolution Just tried it here from my 9.3 desktop to my 10.0 laptop and worked fine. -- Ken Schneider UNIX since 1989, linux since 1994, SuSE since 1998

M.Blackmore

31 Oct 31 Oct

21:37

New subject: [opensuse] Exporting Evolution address book, mail, to another machine.

On Fri, 2005-10-28 at 13:26 +0100, M.Blackmore wrote:

...

to migrate over ... the contents of Evolution

However, it doesn't look like Evolution is going to be so easy.

No luser menus for export anywhere,

Thanks for the collective wisdom, pengiepersons. And as someone said, this lack of transparent "export" - even if it is simply copy the contents of .evolution directory into a "file" and then undo them into the required (and prompted for??) directory on the new box, it is really a Useability Bug. What is almost - and often truly is - subliminal absorbed knowledge to a IT technical person is so out of the information range for those not so versed as to make it hard to even find the right way to conceptualise the question about the problem one has, much less articulate it. Heck, its makes it hard to conceptualise in any meaningful way what the problem IS to ask a question around. Imagine the scene: an Aussie squaddie in the middle of the Papua New Guinea mountains asks a local (who has never seen anyone from the other side of the ridge in the next valley, much less a European) to "G'day mate, go fix that radio over there. It ain't transmitting." Presuming that the chap speaks English, of course. Which he probably doesn't. The people in the next valley don't either. In fact they speak a totally unrelated language that is mutually incomprehensible to any valley around. Well, thats just the way it feels hereabouts at times - something isn't simply "doing what I want". Err err err. There is an old Irish joke it is always worth pondering, for it is both banal and deep: Gentleman asked gobda in the middle of the remotest bog in the west: "Is that the way to Dublin?" "Sure 'tis Sir. But if I were you, I wouldn't be starting from here!"

Patrick Shanahan

21:58

New subject: [opensuse] Exporting Evolution address book, mail, to another machine.

* M.Blackmore [10-31-05 16:40]:

...

Thanks for the collective wisdom, pengiepersons. And as someone said, this lack of transparent "export" - even if it is simply copy the contents of .evolution directory into a "file" and then undo them into the required (and prompted for??) directory on the new box, it is really a Useability Bug.

<rant> Hairs are being split here. No assumption of a user's comprehension and/or level of expertise can be one hundred percent correct. The user who cannot fathom copying a file from one directory to another will also have problems displaying the directory itself. A person sitting in front of a windoz screen would have the same problem if he lacked the most basic knowledge of copying or moving a file from one location to another. Should I post instructions for climbing the steps to my porch because someone, sometime may be so agile that he/she cannot navigate all four steps and may fall and be injured. Or must I also be concerned that that person may be so myopic that my instructions are not in a large enough type or the wrong language. Perhaps I should just remove the steps and tell everyone to stay the XXXX away. </rant> One-Program-Does-Everything is a Billy-ism, *not* a Nix-ism. If fact, it is the opposite. -- Patrick Shanahan Registered Linux User #207535 http://wahoo.no-ip.org @ http://counter.li.org HOG # US1244711 Photo Album: http://wahoo.no-ip.org/gallery2

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participants (9)

James Ogley
Ken Schneider
Kenneth Aar
M.Blackmore
Mozzi
Patrick Shanahan
Paul Beltrani
Pete Connolly
Randall R Schulz