Linux Desktop Email Key to Success

littlepill writes "It looks as though email clients are vital for Linux to succeed in the desktop battle. ZDNet says, "the lack of a powerful email application could hinder the adoption of Linux on the desktop". So, even though Novell's Evolution is one viable and valid product, it seems that there is a clear "message to application vendors to focus on developing a quality email application for the Linux desktop"." I'm unconvinced- I think webmail will soon be replacing client side readers for all but power users.

Comments

Prefer thunderbird

[viniosity]

I've used both Thunderbird and Evolution extensively. In fact, my company has asked me to recommend a mail client going forward if/when we do switch to linux. Hands down Thunderbird is the winner. Here's why:

1. Evolution deletes mail by putting it into a virtual folder and hiding the original message in your inbox. This is ok and seamless to the end user UNLESS you happen to also use webmail. In which case your inbox will be cluttered by messages you thought you'd gotten rid of ages ago. The evolution team has flat out refused to address this issue and has been calling this 'not a bug' (which is true) since 2001.

2. Same as above but for Junk Mail.

3. Finding unread messages in Evolution is difficult. Sorting in general is more flexible in Thunderbird IMHO.

4. Thunderbird is cross-platform. From a corporate standpoint this has let me train the entire staff on Thunderbird before installing linux on any workstation. Once linux is installed, they will be using all their familiar apps but without the viruses, spyware, and blue screens of death.

5. Thunderbird will eventually get calendaring as part of Mozilla Lightning. While that's probably years away, I am patient and hopefuly that this will allow us to eventually get back full exchange-type functionality. Regardless, the calendar is not critical for our office.

Evolution does have some great features, notably beagle integration which I would love love love to see in Thunderbird. Unfortunately I don't have the needed talent to make that happen..

I always try really hard to use evolution because of beagle integration and I always end up going back to Thunderbird which I feel is a good enough client to satisfy the typical corporate desktop. At least for small businesses who don't need the calendar.

Re:Prefer thunderbird

[loftwyr]

6. Lack of easy spam filtering. Evolution uses server (if any) spam filters. Trying to hook up Evolution to spamassasin was a pain as you only got the yes/no filter option without the SA headers being used. If I wanted to autodelete spam with a high rating, I was out of luck. Add that to 2, which made training a pain, I got upset fast.

7. Evolution Palm integration sucks. Without the simplest things like category exchange, you end up with XXX entries in the address book with no easy way to keep different types separate.

I gave up on it until the dev team realize that they're needs aren't the needs of the general public and certainly aren't the needs of the business user.

I use Thunderbird because...

[algae]

Much as I'd like to use Evolution, it's got a few show-stopping problems:

* Leaving POP3 mail on the server is all-or-nothing. I'd like to see the "delete after X days", "delete after it's gone from the inbox" options that have existed in other POP3 clients for the past ten years or so.

* Displaying large messages is slooooow. As a sysadmin, I regularly deal with 1-5MB log files in my email. If I have to wait 30 seconds each for them to display, I'm not gonna use that program.

* No advanced search. You can't search more than a single mailbox at a time.

On the upside, the GPG integration is better than any other mail client I've used. Still, until they can deal with these fairly basic problems/lack of features, it's a no-go.

Re:Webmail for everyone but power users? Nah.

[courtarro]

You're a power user; that's why the editorial made the distinction. I have two close friends who use Gmail and refuse to entertain the idea of checking it using POP with an app like Thunderbird. They love the webmail interface and don't seem to mind setting it as their homepage to facilitate easy checking. Offline browsing used to be a necessity when you paid hourly for internet access, but so many people consider their internet connection a permanent fixture and don't worry about the negatives of downtime or a possible catastrophic host failure that deletes all their archives. Besides, with all the spyware worries and people's distrust of their own computer, non-power users are probably more likely to trust Google or Yahoo with their email data anyway.

In most cases, I've had a pretty difficult time explaining the POP paradigm to less tech-savvy folks anyway. Before I manage to fix things, they don't understand why their friends are getting bounced emails about "full accounts" when their local inbox in OE is empty. Gmail and other webmail services remove that confusion and additionally provide the feature that the email-checking experience is roughly identical on any machine they use to check their mail. Non-power users simply don't consider it worth the effort to use a local mail reader.

Re:E-mail or more?

[NardofDoom]

That's also BS. My boss was amazed that, for the first time ever, someone accepted the 'invitations' that get sent out when he schedules meetings in Outlook. Why? Because I was running OS X and Mail opened the event, added it to iCal, and responded to it. I tried the same thing in Thunderbird with the Calendar extension, and it worked the same.

Re:E-mail or more?

[Crayon Kid]

Yeah, that's poorly worded -- there are very, very powerful email apps for the Linux Desktop, beyond the emacs/vi/mutt/pine crowd, there's Evolution and Thunderbird (which is my email app of choice). What they really mean is a full Outlook/Exchange groupware system; and there are projects that are working on that as well.

I agree with you about the distinction between email and groupware. But may I add that I wouldn't exactly call Evolution or Thunderbird "powerful".

If you really want something for the powerusers, I'm thinking something more along the lines of Sylpheed Claws. It has been ported to Windows, too.