[opensuse] Migrating from Thunderbird
Hi, I've been using Thunderbird on my Suse Desktop for years but have grown ever more frustrated with it's unreliability which seems to get worse with every update. Main symptoms are it randomly fails to download mail, just sits there and times out (POP3 or IMAP), I know there's nothing wrong with the mail server and using telnet or another client on the same machine proves this. Or I'll send a mail and it'll spend an age copying it to the sent items folder where it'll time out saying it couldn't do this (no explanation why), try it again and it'll be OK. If I try and re-install it, things improve but it's not long before it's struggling again. I use it on an MS box too for my personal mail and it's fine, but on 2 openSUSE 10.2 machines with KDE it's hopeless. I've decided to bin this and try something else, possibly Evolution, is it possible to import my mail from Thunderbird into this? What mail clients do the folks on here recommend for Linux? Regards Matthew -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
Matthew, I use Evolution. -=terry(Denver)=- On Thu, 2007-04-05 at 12:01 +0100, Matthew Stringer wrote:
Hi,
I've been using Thunderbird on my Suse Desktop for years but have grown ever more frustrated with it's unreliability which seems to get worse with every update.
Main symptoms are it randomly fails to download mail, just sits there and times out (POP3 or IMAP), I know there's nothing wrong with the mail server and using telnet or another client on the same machine proves this. Or I'll send a mail and it'll spend an age copying it to the sent items folder where it'll time out saying it couldn't do this (no explanation why), try it again and it'll be OK.
If I try and re-install it, things improve but it's not long before it's struggling again.
I use it on an MS box too for my personal mail and it's fine, but on 2 openSUSE 10.2 machines with KDE it's hopeless.
I've decided to bin this and try something else, possibly Evolution, is it possible to import my mail from Thunderbird into this?
What mail clients do the folks on here recommend for Linux?
Regards
Matthew
-- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
I use Evolution.
+1 for evolution.
I've decided to bin this and try something else, possibly Evolution, is it possible to import my mail from Thunderbird into this?
Yes.
What mail clients do the folks on here recommend for Linux?
Evolution. -- -- Adam Tauno Williams Network & Systems Administrator Consultant - http://www.whitemiceconsulting.com Developer - http://www.opengroupware.org -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On Monday 09 April 2007 09:13, Adam Tauno Williams wrote:
I use Evolution.
+1 for evolution.
I've decided to bin this and try something else, possibly Evolution, is it possible to import my mail from Thunderbird into this?
Yes.
What mail clients do the folks on here recommend for Linux?
Evolution.
I just switched from Tbird to Kmail. The only thing I dislike about it is that the damn thing wants to top post and I can't figure out how to make it stop. Dwain -- Dwain Alford P.O. Box 145 Winfield, Alabama 35594 telephone: 205.487.2570 cellphone: 205.495.5619 "The artist may use any form which his expression demands; for his inner impulse must find suitable expression." Wassily Kandinsky, "Concerning The Spiritual In Art"
On Monday 09 April 2007 09:24, dwain wrote: ....
I just switched from Tbird to Kmail. The only thing I dislike about it is that the damn thing wants to top post and I can't figure out how to make it stop.
Dwain
Mouse click, and you are where you want to be. I usually have to clean quotes from parts that are not relevant, so where application set cursor doesn't matter. It is seldom necessary to quote whole article, as that renders quoting counter productive. -- Regards, Rajko. http://en.opensuse.org/Portal -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
Hi Matthew,
On Thu, 5 Apr 2007 12:01:00 +0100, Matthew Stringer
What mail clients do the folks on here recommend for Linux?
Here at work I just recently switched over to using KMail. It has an import wizard which will import your mail into KMail for you. Address book you need to export to LDIF and then import into KMail's contacts. -- Raoul Snyman Saturn Laboratories raoul.snyman@saturnlaboratories.co.za www.saturnlaboratories.co.za blog.saturnlaboratories.co.za -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On 04/05/2007 07:01 AM somebody named Matthew Stringer wrote:
Hi,
I've been using Thunderbird on my Suse Desktop for years but have grown ever more frustrated with it's unreliability which seems to get worse with every update.
Main symptoms are it randomly fails to download mail, just sits there and times out (POP3 or IMAP), I know there's nothing wrong with the mail server and using telnet or another client on the same machine proves this. Or I'll send a mail and it'll spend an age copying it to the sent items folder where it'll time out saying it couldn't do this (no explanation why), try it again and it'll be OK.
If I try and re-install it, things improve but it's not long before it's struggling again.
I use it on an MS box too for my personal mail and it's fine, but on 2 openSUSE 10.2 machines with KDE it's hopeless.
I've decided to bin this and try something else, possibly Evolution, is it possible to import my mail from Thunderbird into this?
What mail clients do the folks on here recommend for Linux?
Regards
Matthew
Three or four years ago I tested five or six different email clients and decided on thunderbird. My main considerations were ease of setup, ease of use, number and quality of useful functions. One must-have for me was the ability to access multiple email accounts via IMAPS. This ruled out emacs' several offerings; since I'm a long-time emacs user and really wanted to use this for email too, this was a major disappointment. Sylpheed was good at IMAPS, but not so good with other key features (IIRC, attachments were a PITA). Pine, an app I used for years, was a headache to configure for multiple IMAPS accounts. Evolution crashed too much. I don't recall my dissatisfaction with mail/nail. Bottom line: Thunderbird was clearly the best of the bunch. So I've now been using it for three or four years and it's been stable and functional. There's a lot of nice add-ons for it too. I haven't noticed any problems accessing mail servers and I'm plowing through thousands of emails per day; I'm in Cleveland (OH) and my mail servers are in Chicago, Portland OR, and who knows where else... due to the magic of the net, it doesn't matter. I also read/write emails occasionally at cybercafes. You might want to look harder at your thunderbird network configurations. If using broadband, give your ISP a call to find out if crappy packets are piling up on their side of your modem. This was a problem for me for awhile. Clearing that made a big speed difference for me. I'm not religiously fervent about tbird. Big parts of it need more work. Managing addressbooks is a pain, sometimes impossible. I'd like to be able to do more configuration of the keyboard in the composer and elsewhere... so, like pine, I wouldn't have to use the mouse so much. The composer has no native way to insert a file... that's ridiculous. And there's other bogusities. But like I said at top, I've found it the best of the bunch. YMMV. hth, ken -- "Genius might be described as a supreme capacity for getting its possessors into trouble of all kinds." -- Samuel Butler -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 The Thursday 2007-04-05 at 12:01 +0100, Matthew Stringer wrote:
is it possible to import my mail from Thunderbird into this?
It is possible to copy over mail folders from any mail client to any other - - provided you use the standard mbox format, which thundirbird does, and evolution too, I think. You may have problems with folders in maildir format, like the ones kmail uses by default. It is also possible to use the same folder in diferent mail programs, as long as they don't run simultaneously: thus you switch mailer in a minute. For instance, I share the same folders with Pine, Thunderbird, Seamonkey, Kmail... I use any of them as the whim takes me. Evolution was problematic on this last time I tried, though (which was years ago). You can also do this using an imap local server: easier, probably. - -- Cheers, Carlos E. R. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.5 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Made with pgp4pine 1.76 iD8DBQFGFOmItTMYHG2NR9URAi1zAKCQexJFiNCK3I/Z/Q6f1DzKOEY8nwCfYWdJ 7u7uTbf6rBZHHafJNxulCZc= =mN8n -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On Thursday 05 April 2007 13:20:10 Carlos E. R. wrote:
The Thursday 2007-04-05 at 12:01 +0100, Matthew Stringer wrote:
is it possible to import my mail from Thunderbird into this?
It is possible to copy over mail folders from any mail client to any other - provided you use the standard mbox format, which thundirbird does, and evolution too, I think.
That's good to know. I like the operation of Thunderbird but as it keeps going wrong I'm struggling with it. In addition the company I work for have decided to switch internal mail to MS Exchange, I know that Evolution will work with this and support shared calendars n such, not sure whether Thunderbird will. Matthew -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
I like the operation of Thunderbird but as it keeps going wrong I'm struggling with it. In addition the company I work for have decided to switch internal mail to MS Exchange, I know that Evolution will work with this and support shared calendars n such, not sure whether Thunderbird will.
No, TB won't. Evolution should work fine. -- -- Adam Tauno Williams Network & Systems Administrator Consultant - http://www.whitemiceconsulting.com Developer - http://www.opengroupware.org -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
* Carlos E. R.
The Thursday 2007-04-05 at 12:01 +0100, Matthew Stringer wrote:
is it possible to import my mail from Thunderbird into this?
It is possible to copy over mail folders from any mail client to any other - - provided you use the standard mbox format, which thundirbird does, and evolution too, I think.
You may have problems with folders in maildir format, like the ones kmail uses by default.
Note that 'mutt' can read maildir and save as mbox and vice-versa. Mutt can share kmail/t-bird mail folders. -- 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 OpenSUSE Linux http://en.opensuse.org/ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 The Thursday 2007-04-05 at 16:39 -0400, Patrick Shanahan wrote:
You may have problems with folders in maildir format, like the ones kmail uses by default.
Note that 'mutt' can read maildir and save as mbox and vice-versa.
Now, that doesn't surprise me ;-p Actually, any client that read and writes both should be able to do it by just copying email from one folder to another.
Mutt can share kmail/t-bird mail folders.
- -- Cheers, Carlos E. R. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.5 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Made with pgp4pine 1.76 iD8DBQFGFW/ItTMYHG2NR9URAoqQAJ0UW+MHq53iLcXNavHT9cAp5b/bQACfUpjj sjOHvBH7s2ic3AFkOWDE420= =KpF0 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
Curiously, just experienced the permanent timeout issue myself. However, I migrated in opposite direction (evolution -> thunderbird) some time ago as my evolution setup never worked properly again after an upgrade from v1 to v2 when upgrading between different version of SuSE 9. While I liked v1, I was also not happy with v2 for other reasons. Seems that newer versions do not always mean better functionality :-) In this case problem cleared on reboot of client. I have had timeouts occasionally in past but they seem to be related to fetchmail running or incoming mail when I am accessing folders via imap, and usually rectified themself quite quickly (My personal server side mail setup could mean some mail will take a bit of time to process. I suspect this something to do with file locking on server, and some tweaking will probably sort this). On this occasion famd was hitting 100% cpu usage and the imap daemon was reporting a cacheing issue, restartng the imap server did not clear problem on client so suspect that Thunderbird is a bit twitchy about unusual error states. I have noted famd warning in past with theimap server I am using, but it has never caused a major problem. I hope in my case this is a one off. I have got a couple of other issues with Firefox and Thunderbird. I find that both refuse to load under KDE, but will load under other window managers. This issue is probably related to something flaky in the Sony VIAO AC'97 sound support (they ran OK under KDE until I got the sound support going). Using WindowMaker at moment where until today everything worked fine, and funnily enough personally not likely to move back KDE as the new menu setup I find really irritating to use.... Matthew Stringer wrote:
Hi,
I've been using Thunderbird on my Suse Desktop for years but have grown ever more frustrated with it's unreliability which seems to get worse with every update.
Main symptoms are it randomly fails to download mail, just sits there and times out (POP3 or IMAP), I know there's nothing wrong with the mail server and using telnet or another client on the same machine proves this. Or I'll send a mail and it'll spend an age copying it to the sent items folder where it'll time out saying it couldn't do this (no explanation why), try it again and it'll be OK.
If I try and re-install it, things improve but it's not long before it's struggling again.
I use it on an MS box too for my personal mail and it's fine, but on 2 openSUSE 10.2 machines with KDE it's hopeless.
I've decided to bin this and try something else, possibly Evolution, is it possible to import my mail from Thunderbird into this?
What mail clients do the folks on here recommend for Linux?
Regards
Matthew
On Thursday 05 April 2007 07:01, Matthew Stringer wrote:
Hi,
/snip/
I've decided to bin this and try something else, possibly Evolution, is it possible to import my mail from Thunderbird into this?
What mail clients do the folks on here recommend for Linux?
Regards
Matthew
Another email (from Carlos E.R. reports how to copy Thunderbird mail into KMail, so you can avoid Gnome if you wish. I like Eudora on the Win platform, and with a little futzing, you can get KMail to look very much like Eudora. I'm talking about the Eudora native version, not the one that looks like Outlook. For all I know you can make KMail look like Outlook also, but why? KMail also does a few tricks that Eudora 4.0 doesn't know about, like refusing to accept .html screens until you permit it. (It prints the .html script, but does not translate it until you say OK.) In 10.0, KMail would sometimes deliver perfectly legitimate email in some kind of Asian characters that looked like Chinese, and I could not find any way to salvage it, so I went back to 9.3. And now I'm paying for that, since 9.3 forgot how to print to the printer, but that's another story. I would ask around if anyone's had the Chinese character problem with KMail in the version of SuSE you're using. Otherwise, I mostly like it. In 9.3 the problem did not arise. The only other problem I've had with KMail, set up as a Eudora wannabe, is that the incoming mail subjects always appear in very small typeface, and all the helpful people on this list could not fix that. Everything else, including this outgoing mail, comes up nice and readable. The small typeface may not bother anyone with a big screen and good vision, but I've had some serious vision problems in the recent past, and it is a bit of a trial, but with my 20" LCD, I can live with it. I know that there are a whole batch of email progs on Linux, and some of the old Unix hands will try to guide you to old Unix progs, but I'm not an old Unix hand--I'm an old Windows 3.1 user, and DOS before, so this is my take on the thing. (Old Windows had NO mail, AFAIK.) --doug -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On Thursday 05 April 2007 18:51, Doug McGarrett wrote:
On Thursday 05 April 2007 07:01, Matthew Stringer wrote:
Hi,
/snip/
I've decided to bin this and try something else, possibly Evolution, is it possible to import my mail from Thunderbird into this?
What mail clients do the folks on here recommend for Linux?
Regards
Matthew
Another email (from Carlos E.R. reports how to copy Thunderbird mail into KMail, so you can avoid Gnome if you wish.
I like Eudora on the Win platform, and with a little futzing, you can get KMail to look very much like Eudora. I'm talking about the Eudora native version, not the one that looks like Outlook. For all I know you can make KMail look like Outlook also, but why? KMail also does a few tricks that Eudora 4.0 doesn't know about, like refusing to accept .html screens until you permit it. (It prints the .html script, but does not translate it until you say OK.)
In 10.0, KMail would sometimes deliver perfectly legitimate email in some kind of Asian characters that looked like Chinese, and I could not find any way to salvage it, so I went back to 9.3. And now I'm paying for that, since 9.3 forgot how to print to the printer, but that's another story. I would ask around if anyone's had the Chinese character problem with KMail in the version of SuSE you're using. Otherwise, I mostly like it. In 9.3 the problem did not arise. The only other problem I've had with KMail, set up as a Eudora wannabe, is that the incoming mail subjects always appear in very small typeface, ,....<snip>
Doug You can't Configure Kmail > Appearance > Fonts > Message List > Fonts......and change the font sizes???? Bob S -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On Thursday 05 April 2007 20:17, Bob S wrote:
On Thursday 05 April 2007 18:51, Doug McGarrett wrote:
On Thursday 05 April 2007 07:01, Matthew Stringer wrote:
Hi,
/snip/
I've decided to bin this and try something else, possibly Evolution, is it possible to import my mail from Thunderbird into this?
What mail clients do the folks on here recommend for Linux?
Regards
Matthew
Another email (from Carlos E.R. reports how to copy Thunderbird mail into KMail, so you can avoid Gnome if you wish.
I like Eudora on the Win platform, /snip/ The only other problem I've had with KMail, set up as a Eudora wannabe, is that the incoming mail subjects always appear in very small typeface, ,....<snip>
Doug
You can't Configure Kmail > Appearance > Fonts > Message List > Fonts......and change the font sizes????
Bob S Apparently not. Under message list, there are 3 Option boxes, none of them referring to fonts. Bummer. I got everything else to a nice readable size, but the message list will not, until after you've already opened the message, by which time it no longer matters. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On Saturday 07 April 2007 21:40, Doug McGarrett wrote:
Apparently not. Under message list, there are 3 Option boxes, none of them referring to fonts. Bummer. I got everything else to a nice readable size, but the message list will not, until after you've already opened the message, by which time it no longer matters.
I stand immediately corrected--it's the other way round. After you've read the mail, the font shrinks, so if you want to re-open one, it's harder to see. The incoming message list is in a large font that I selected in a different window. I just got a 19" lcd display, so the problem is not so much so, either. --doug -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On Saturday 07 April 2007 21:40, Doug McGarrett wrote:
On Thursday 05 April 2007 20:17, Bob S wrote:
On Thursday 05 April 2007 18:51, Doug McGarrett wrote:
On Thursday 05 April 2007 07:01, Matthew Stringer wrote:
Hi,
/snip/
I've decided to bin this and try something else, possibly Evolution, is it possible to import my mail from Thunderbird into this?
What mail clients do the folks on here recommend for Linux?
Regards
Matthew
Another email (from Carlos E.R. reports how to copy Thunderbird mail into KMail, so you can avoid Gnome if you wish.
I like Eudora on the Win platform, /snip/ The only other problem I've had with KMail, set up as a Eudora wannabe, is that the incoming mail subjects always appear in very small typeface, ,....<snip>
Doug
You can't Configure Kmail > Appearance > Fonts > Message List > Fonts......and change the font sizes????
Bob S
Apparently not. Under message list, there are 3 Option boxes, none of them referring to fonts. Bummer. I got everything else to a nice readable size, but the message list will not, until after you've already opened the message, by which time it no longer matters.
Under appearance > fonts > (apply to) choose message list from dropdown box, It does not show you lists of available font types, styles, and sizes? Very strange. Look again. How did you change your other font sizes? Don't choose Appearance > Message List. Choose Appearance > Fonts then go to the dropdown box and choose Message List. Bob S. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On Thursday 05 April 2007 04:01, Matthew Stringer wrote:
Hi,
I've been using Thunderbird on my Suse Desktop for years but have grown ever more frustrated with it's unreliability which seems to get worse with every update.
Main symptoms are it randomly fails to download mail, just sits there and times out (POP3 or IMAP), I know there's nothing wrong with the mail server and using telnet or another client on the same machine proves this. Or I'll send a mail and it'll spend an age copying it to the sent items folder where it'll time out saying it couldn't do this (no explanation why), try it again and it'll be OK.
If I try and re-install it, things improve but it's not long before it's struggling again.
I use it on an MS box too for my personal mail and it's fine, but on 2 openSUSE 10.2 machines with KDE it's hopeless.
I've decided to bin this and try something else, possibly Evolution, is it possible to import my mail from Thunderbird into this?
What mail clients do the folks on here recommend for Linux?
I would recommend kmail/kontact that comes with every KDE desktop. It has a lot of features, integrates a calendar, addressbook, news reader and rss feed, and even syncs to my Palm Tungsten E. Kmail can import a wide variety of formats of mail, including eudora's mbox format. (Eudora is one of the few reasonably well behaved Windows email clients that actually conform to unix norms). -- bob@rsmits.ca "I'm not one of those who think Bill Gates is the devil. I simply suspect that if Microsoft ever met up with the devil, it wouldn't need an interpreter." -InfoWorld Editor Nicholas Petreley -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
participants (13)
-
Adam Tauno Williams -
Bob S -
Carlos E. R. -
Doug McGarrett -
dwain -
G.T.Smith -
ken -
Matthew Stringer -
Patrick Shanahan -
Rajko M. -
Raoul Snyman -
Robert Smits -
Teruel de Campo MD