Re: MUAs that compare with Outlook (your chance to show how much better Linux is than MS!!)
On Thursday 12 July 2001 19:35, Brian Nelson wrote:
> Kurt Lieber wrote:
> > OK, I've read with great amusement all the chest-thumping going on about
> > MUAs, MTAs and how Microsoft email products are things that you scrape
> > off the bottom of your shoe.
> >
> > I, for one, am brand-spanking new at Linux and have yet to find a Linux
> > MUA that meets my needs. I really do like Linux and would like to
> > transition over to it for my desktop machine, but because of it's
> > weakness on the MUA side, I haven't been able to do so. ("weakness" is
> > my perception - you can prove me wrong by continuing to read)
> >
> > So, here's a list of my requirements and I'm hoping you guys can point
> > me to an MUA that meets them. If so, I'll gladly switch over to Linux
> > full-time and forswear Microsoft forever. :)
> >
> > - Must be able to handle multiple IMAP-based accounts. (not necessarily
> > on the same server)
> > - Must be able to easily change which account I'm sending email from,
> > ideally selectable from the individual message composition screen.
> > - Must support caching of IMAP messages to local folders (i.e. offline
> > mode) no -- POP3 won't work for me.
> > - Must be able to provide a view similar to Outlook's folder list that
> > shows me, *at a single glance* how many unread messages I have in each
> > of my IMAP accounts. No switching around, no multiple keystrokes -- one
> > screen.
> > - Must have preview pane capabilities or, at the very least, something
> > similar to Outlook's show first 3-lines capability.
> > - Must have sophisticated filtering/rules capabilities. (pretty sure
> > procmail can fulfill this)
> > - Must support automatic spell-checking of emails.
> > - Must seamlessly handle MIME attachments (meaning I click on the "add
> > attachment" button/key, select the file from the hard drive and send the
> > email message with no other farting around.)
> > - Must have integrated address book (or seamlessly integrate into
> > another address book program) This includes auto-completing email
> > addresses as they're entered and the ability to enter actual names and
> > have the address program substitute the email address upon sending.
> > - Must have integrated calendaring program (or seamlessly integrate into
> > another calendar program)
> > - Must synch up with Palm Pilots (at least address book and calendar --
> > don't care about synching email)
> > - Address book must support exporting for use in other programs.
> > - Nice to have a debian package, but not required.
> > - Nice to be free, but not necessarily required.
> > - Be as stable (or more) as Outlook 2002.
> > - Does not have to be one single program, but does have to integrate
> > reasonably simply. I'm not willing to write custom code or spend 12
> > hours on fiddling with things to get them interoperating correctly.
> > (especially as this is not something I have to do with Outlook)
> >
> > These are, IMO, very reasonable, standard requirements and they are
> > things that I *rely* on to get my job done. Again, I really hope that
> > there's a package (or set of packages) that will allow me to do what I'm
> > looking for. So far, I haven't seen it. And yes, I will gladly
> > sacrifice a *little* stability in order to achieve these features and
> > capabilities.
> >
> > If there isn't, then I hope the person who stated "anyone who uses MS
> > email products is ignorant" will reconsider their statement.
>
> That's not an accurate quote, but...
>
> Why on earth would you want a single application to do all of that? Do
> you want it to cook you dinner and clean your room too? This goes
> against the traditional Unix philosophy of "do one thing and do it
> well". If you want to read email, use an MUA like mutt. If you want to
> sync with an IMAP account, use mailsync. If you want to spell check,
> use ispell. And so on.
>
> If you want massively integrated packages, why are you running GNU/Linux
> anyway? If you want Outlook, then run Outlook. Don't expect things to
> be done the same way in GNU/Linux as there are done on MS Windows.
If you wish to use GNU/Linux nonetheless then perhap you could use wine
(www.winehq.com). "Wine is animplementation of the Windows 3.x and Win32 APIs
on top of X and Unix. Think of Wine as a Windows compatibility layer". Simply
mount your old Windows partition containing Outlook and run Outlook with
'wine outlook.exe' (or was it OE.exe? been too long). If you're lucky, it
might work. If not you could try fiddling around with configuration options.
Be sure to install both wine and winesetuptk.
However I must agree with the previous post, if you don't want to, or don't
have the time to learn GNU/Linux and it's applications then you shouldn't
bother. If Windows and Outlook serve you well, why switch to Linux.
Evolution and Aethera come close to Outlook in looks, however as someone else
mentioned they are both in heavy development and might not contain the
features you require. Evolution is currently more complete than Aethera.
Personally I like KMail.
Cheers,
Brendon Leese
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