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Evolution 0.3 Released
aleksey notes that HelixCode
announced
Evolution 0.3. With all the Napster-related news flooding us lately, it's nice to see some good news. Evolution is making great progress, and I'm probably not the only one itching for just enough stability to use it for a few days.
Where are the pics?
As I understand it, Evolution will be a Outlook replacement--that is, you can use Evolution on Linux to connect to an Exchange server. You can see your email, your contacts, your schedule, etc.
I'm very very interested in this. From my sig (today and over the past couple of months) you can tell that my company has a server that runs on Linux (and Tru64 and AIX) that you can connect to from Exchange and Outlook on Windows. Unfortunately we can't do the Outlook specific stuff yet (contacts, task list, calendar/schedule, etc). Hopefully being able to use/view/test the Evolution code will help us there.
Actually, all that Outlook-stuff is really done in the MAPI driver. The server doesn't really have to know anything (except for the workgroup stuff like sharing schedules). My question for the Evolution team is: Are you going to release a separate "MAPI driver for Linux" piece?
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Linux MAPI Server!
http://www.openone.com/software/MailOne/
(Exchange Migration HOWTO coming soon)
There doesn't seem to be much mention about how this stores mail. One of the (very few) things that was nice about Balsa was that it used libmutt to store mail. So, I could access my email from either Balsa or Mutt, without worrying about one even subtly messing it up for the other, and it working seamlessly from both. Which is nice when I had to ssh to my box from work (and I send most email from xterm -e mutt in X anyway...).
Is there any hope of accessing Evolution's data files from a console-based program with any grace at all? Or, once I start using it, do I always have to have an X session available to use it?
Much as Outlook comes in for a lot of flak here on /. thanks to its interesting way of dealing with security, it is a very nice piece of software which makes dealing with work a hell of a lot easier. With all of the "productivity" features that it includes it couldn't fail to be a hit with PHB's everywhere and since it's PHBs that get to buy the software (unfortunately) many of us have to use at work, any alternative is going to need to give an equivalent set of features.
From what information there is on the website it appears as though this is what Evolution provides. What does this mean? It means that it's another piece of software which contributes to the possibility of your boss choosing Linux instead of Windows for their desktop machines. We now have an office suite and a "productivity" mail client, and these are two of the most essential elements of the modern office desktop.
So despite all of Linux's other strengths, this program is likely to be one of the things that gets Linux into offices. Which, in the long run, can only be a good thing.
Do apt-get update
And apt-get install evolution
(Assuming you have already installed Helix Gnome. Just add deb http://spidermonkey.helixcode.com/distributions/de bian unstable main to sources.list otherwise.)
Have Fun!
Much as I hate Exchange, I hope that a high priorty for Evolution is to talk to it using it's native/proprietary protocol. Many companies run it in this mode with IMAP turned off, leaving people like me who run Linux completely out of luck for email. We really need an application for Linux to access an Exchange server running in this mode, fetchmail seems to have some sort of support for Exchange, but it is not well documented and I think it is targeted at some sort of buggering that M$ has done to IMAP.
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This is a common mis-conception.
Evolution is a groupware package, just like Outlook, Lotus Notes, et al. It has mail, calandering, contact management, etc... Therefore, some people call it an Outlook replacement... It is. IF you don't use any proprietary Exchange features.
It is NOT Outlook/Exchange compatable any more than ANY POP-3/IMAP and SMTP client is Exchange compatible. It does NOT impliment the "native" Exchange protocols. It WILL NOT import free/busy information, contact lists, network folders or any other "Exchange only" features from an Exchange server. It does NOT interact with Exchange in any way other than as a simple SMTP/POP-3/IMAP client.
It uses it's own OPEN protocols to deal with the groupware functionality.
It also happens to LOOK a lot like Outlook.
Again, Evolution is NOT "Exchange" compatable any more than ANY POP-3/IMAP/SMTP mailer.
So... If you want a good standards based groupware suite, Evolution will be a good bet. If you want an Exchange client, your gonna hafta stick with Outlook till someone reverse engineers the proprietary protocols.
I will switch to Evolution - no matter how flaky and unstable it might be - if it supports seamless and invisible PGP encryption.
Here's what I want:
1) Store all my mail PGP encrypted in the mail file. If I get unencrypted mail, then encrypt it BEFORE it hits the hard disk.
2) When I start the program, prompt me for my pass phrase, and cache it for this session or for a user-definable timeout period.
3) PGP sign all outgoing mail
4) Add public keys to my keyring as seamlessly and invisibly as possible.
5) If I send mail to someon for whom I have a public key, encrypt it BY DEFAULT.
The biggest problem with using mail encryption is that the interface is such a pain in the ass. If Evolution hides all the dirty details, then I can start encrypting my mail on a regular basis - and if the encryption support is really good and enabled BY DEFAULT, then we get the "fax machine effect".
Are you listening, Evolution developers?
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If they were "more integrated," then what you would actually have to do is not to "get the latest versions of these libs," but instead "get the latest version of MondoGNOMElib (version 2000.07.28) " which would involve compiling the same, entire set of code.
By not integrating the libraries, this allows them to "evolve" independently towards stability.
Thus, if GConf gets stable pretty quickly, then it can do so, the version numbers can stop changing, and you get at least one component that is visibly stable.
In contrast, by "integrating" them all together, the whole thing becomes a jumble of instability, and you can't tell which pieces are stable and which aren't, because all you know is that the program demanded that you install MondoGNOMElib version 2001.04.01
KDE is not terribly much cleaner; with the "not quite stable ABI" of G++, you're left with potentially needing to recompile the whole tool chain any time either:
- G++ gets bumped a version level;
- libg++ changes versions;
- libstdc++ changes versions;
- STL changes version;
- Qt changes versions;
- libkde changes versions.
There is potential that GCC 3.0 will resolve some of this by providing some additional promises as to the ABI interoperability, but that's not there yet.If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
For more information on IMAP, you can read this Linux Gazette article I wrote two years ago on the subject. It's a bit dated but still mostly relevant.
Evolution, of course, supports IMAP. I switched to mutt after the 1.2 release added decent IMAP support. I urge you, if you are at all concerned about getting at your mail, to switch to IMAP today and put all those worries behind you forever.