Thots on evolution vs t'bird.

[Jon 'maddog' Hall]

>Enigmail makes PGP/GPG encryption simple (including key management).

Evolution allows PGP/GPG signing and encryption, as well as S/MIME
signing and encryption for outgoing email.  Incoming email "just works".

>I haven't used Evolution in a while, but last time I did, I was turned 
>off by the close resemblance to Outbreak.

Well, I must admit I still like the old exmh mailer, but more and more
Evolution "works for me".   I guess if I did not use software just
because it has "a close resemblance to software generated by the Evil
Empire then I would not use OpenOffice either.

I set up Evolution to pull mail from three places:

o local email
o my AT&T account (POP)
o my LI account (POP)

On Ubuntu 8.10 is easy to integrate it with either SpamAssassin or
BogoFilter.  BogoFilter is my default, and SpamAssassin is only an
installation and click away.  It even has a little check box that allows
you to use SpamAssassin totally locally, or go out to check the
databases over the net.

It handles Certificates, proxies, text and html (and in its contact
lists even keeps track of who likes html vs textual based email).

It handles multiple languages, and integrates its contact lists with
Gnome Pilot (for those Palm Pilot people).

It is easy to set up filters on incoming email to send them directly to
a folder, which then highlights to show you that you have unread email.

What I don't like about it is that it does not use the directories of
email messages, each message being in a different file like exmh does,
so I can not go "grepping" through my email.

On the other hand, the searches are fast and the search mechanism is
more than adequate, and allows me to set up and store complex searches
for future use.

Once in a while the cache seems to get out of whack, but blowing away
the cache and starting evolution back up again seems to fix that
problem.

Finally, after using it the whole day, and working with the hundreds of
email messages I get each day and the hundreds of thousands of email
messages (altogether, not in one day) that I keep online, it *sometimes*
takes a minute or two to shut down.  Start up is always fairly quick,
particularly if I keep my inbox small by filing my message in various
folders, sub-foldrers, sub-sub folders, etc.  With "suspend and
"hibernation" working on my notebook, slow shutdown is not as much an
issue.

I am sure that Evolution will not be liked by everyone.  I started using
it to be compatible with a project that I was working with, so I could
help out our customers, who were more likely to use Evolution then they
were exmh.  I had nothing against exmh, and would probably still be
using it today other than the project I mentioned.

Warmest regards,

maddog
-- 
Jon "maddog" Hall
Executive Director           Linux International(R)
email: maddog at li.org         80 Amherst St. 
Voice: +1.603.672.4557       Amherst, N.H. 03031-3032 U.S.A.
WWW: http://www.li.org

Board Member: Uniforum Association
Board Member Emeritus: USENIX Association (2000-2006)

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