-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Will Stephenson wrote:
On Tuesday 02 October 2007, G T Smith said:
Randall R Schulz wrote:
On Monday 01 October 2007 14:04, Sergey Mkrtchyan wrote:
Hi List! <snip>
I do strongly recommend moving away from Thunderbird. I really dislike it by comparison to KMail. The only thing it does better is compose formatted messages. I think the decision of which e-Mail client to use depends to a large extent of the functionality required, and the environments used. As a stand alone mail client KMail is adequate... for a lot of other stuff it is not...
Linux support for SyncML is frankly antidiluvean. Only Evolution and Thunderbird have any support, the former by a third party command line application, the second by a third party plug-in. KMail last time I looked, seems to make use of the multisync based stuff which does not do
I'll give you the benefit of the doubt that this mail was stuck in a misconfigured mailserver for the last few years and just happened to turn up in this thread now, rather than seeing this as an uninformed rant :).
To set the record straight, KMail and KDE use the cross-platform OpenSync library (opensync.org), one of the major plugins for which is for SyncML. The 'kitchensync' tool in KDE was ported away from multisync to opensync 2 years ago. For specialised features, Palm OS users can use KPilot and mobile phone users can use KMobileTools. These support device specific features not addressed by SyncML.
I spent a fair bit of time working with the Funambol SyncML server and went through the various options up down and side ways to get it going (including having to work through a Thunderbird change which effectively crocked the Funambol SyncML plugin on 1.5)... The evolution stuff mostly works for contacts as does Thunderbird stuff on 2.x, calendar synchronisation is still a bit of a problem with both (but this seems to a Nokia 9500/Funambol issue). I did look at the KDE stuff and although I have KitchenSync installed the Kontact synchronistation seemed to be restricted to KPilot and Palm (not really a lot of use to me to be honest). As I did not really like Kontact very much I did not explore this further. I am really rather hoping that the work being done on the Evolution Funambol SyncML support will evolve into a full version at some point because the effective functionality is a bit better than the Thunderbird plugin, but currently it is just not very intuitive to use, and installing is a bit of work as well... (if this happens then I will strongly be tempted into moving back to Evolution despite single platform issues)... KMobileTools with series 80 phones (i.e. 9500/9300/9300i) was a basic non starter last time I looked at it . and rather similarly so with UIQ based symbian phones,.. series 60 or 90 maybe (but I do not have one of these available so I have not tested them with it) ... (I have just reading today that those hoping to get linux phones into the marketplace have come to some sort of agreement with the OMA about standards so maybe this problem will work itself out in the longer term...)
This code is under active development at the moment but a lot of people are using it already. SUSE employs one of the opensync core developers, a couple of other guys in the Mobile Devices team are involved too, and we host development workshops for syncing.
I have made various attempts over the past few years to get usable interoperability with Symbian OS smartphones with linux with very mixed results... the PSION based things like nfsplip did kind of work with earlier 92xx communicators, P8xx and of course with PSIONs but are not a lot of good with later symbian protocols... SyncML is the obvious alternative but you do need the client-server setup The only real open source option on the server end is Funambol and basically there is not a lot around which really works well with it on linux (and again this issue is bit complicated by limitations in some of the funambol device modules and with the devices used).... Funambol is also not that easy to setup (at least with MySQL as the back end database). At the moment for file transfer I turn my phone into an FTP server (when at home only) and connect and periodically synchronise contacts with funambol.. and the only immediate option for calendaring seems to be something involving Midgard and iCal (which for obvious reasons I am holding fire on)... For these reasons I still hold the SyncML position is pretty poor at the moment, I also recognise that this to some extent is being addressed...
Will.
- -- ============================================================================== I have always wished that my computer would be as easy to use as my telephone. My wish has come true. I no longer know how to use my telephone. Bjarne Stroustrup ============================================================================== -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.5 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with SUSE - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFHAjD5asN0sSnLmgIRArCiAJ9I3aRDm0HvT4nIEFms60IsXS/TKACdH2Nc +lsaiI5+CZCCv3VznLsNthE= =MBlE -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org