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leifbk
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PostPosted: Fri Jul 19, 2013 9:56 am    Post subject: Goodbye KMail Reply with quote

Since I started with Gentoo and KDE 10 years ago, KMail has been a large part of my life. I have subscribed to several high-volume lists, and keep personal correspondence with a lot of people. In April, I was persuaded by dilfridge to upgrade to KMail 2 which has been a total wreckage. Hardly a day has gone by without hangs and error messages about "broken resources" (in Norwegian, the KDE translators have used the word "ødelagt", which can mean anything from "broken" to "utterly devastated", undoubtedly frightening a few users). A couple of days ago it completely stopped working with the equivalent of "retrieving folder contents" and despite several reboots it refused to work. The suggested solutions I found on the net seemed to amount to removing random hidden files and folders in my $HOME directory.

I even ran "akonadictl restart" in a terminal window, and the output might as well have been written in Chinese, it looked like total gibberish to a guy who hardly know the difference between IMAP and LDAP. I'm just a regular Joe Sixpack who happen to know a few things about Unix, and find Windows boring.

I gave up, and emerged Thunderbird which looks like a decent enough mail program. From what I've gleaned on the net, it might even be persuaded to use my old Mail folder. For the time being, I have unsubscribed most of the mail lists to avoid cluttering things up.

Now I want to get rid of the Akonadi / Nepomuk / KDEPIM trash; how do I go about removing all of it? I don't need Knode or Akregator, and setting up Kontact seems like a job for a veteran mail admin. I want to hang on to KDE a bit further, I like Konsole and KWrite very much.
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franzf
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PostPosted: Fri Jul 19, 2013 11:48 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

There was (is) USE="-semantic-desktop". But starting with kde-4.11, it will get removed. How to deal with that at runtime (disabling nepomuk/akonadi) is described here:
http://blogs.gentoo.org/johu/2013/06/13/disabling-semantic-desktop-at-runtime-2
Though the akonadi-part might get tricky. If it's only about kwrite and konsole, you might want to try a different DE/WM. As 4.10 introduced some new issues, where old ones were not fixed (there are many bugreports that got confirmed but noone seems to care, especially in the lock screen and solid) I took the opportunity and removed KDE entirely. vim is great, too, as is urxvt. There are other filemanagers besides dolphin (currently using ranger), and awesome-wm is usable, too.
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leifbk
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PostPosted: Fri Jul 19, 2013 12:29 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I've always used Konqueror as my file manager in KDE. It's much better as a file manager than as a web browser :) For the latter I'm using Firefox.

Yes, I may drop KDE entirely; since the good old 3.x it seems to have moved in a direction that I increasingly don't want to follow.
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aCOSwt
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PostPosted: Fri Jul 19, 2013 12:42 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

leifbk wrote:
Yes, I may drop KDE entirely; since the good old 3.x it seems to have moved in a direction that I increasingly don't want to follow.

Just an happy user of KDE-4.9.5 + KDEPIM<4.5.50 wanting to say hello!
I make no doubt that dilfridge is competent and achieves a huge and hard work... but...
I never trust him.
Essentially because he acknowledges there might be some real trouble only from the moment he experiences it personally.
And the rest because he actually maintains packages he does not trust in.
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creaker
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PostPosted: Fri Jul 19, 2013 2:19 pm    Post subject: Re: Goodbye KMail Reply with quote

leifbk wrote:

Now I want to get rid of the Akonadi / Nepomuk / KDEPIM trash; how do I go about removing all of it? I don't need Knode or Akregator, and setting up Kontact seems like a job for a veteran mail admin. I want to hang on to KDE a bit further, I like Konsole and KWrite very much.


You can just disable this crap. It more easily then rid it out. If you want to remove it at all, take a look how I did it:
https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-963504.html
may be it suggests some ideas.

Currently I am at 4.10.4 (without any semantic/nepomuk/akonadi/pim stuffs) and will remain here until 4.11 will be released.
4.11 should be LTS (it was announced), so I will try to do this trick when it will be released, and will wait for 5.0.
After that I can decide what to do next: stay with KDE or search for something else.
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leifbk
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PostPosted: Fri Jul 19, 2013 2:22 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

It's strange how KMail replicates Amarok, which also went from great to useless in the 1.x -> 2.x upgrade. It's probably the same team behind both.
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leifbk
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PostPosted: Fri Jul 19, 2013 2:47 pm    Post subject: Re: Goodbye KMail Reply with quote

creaker wrote:
leifbk wrote:

Now I want to get rid of the Akonadi / Nepomuk / KDEPIM trash; how do I go about removing all of it? I don't need Knode or Akregator, and setting up Kontact seems like a job for a veteran mail admin. I want to hang on to KDE a bit further, I like Konsole and KWrite very much.


You can just disable this crap. It more easily then rid it out. If you want to remove it at all, take a look how I did it:
https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-963504.html
may be it suggests some ideas.


First thing I did when this Akonadi / Nepomuk trash arrived was to turn off Desktop Search in the System settings. The link provided by franzf above has a secondary link that lists a few options that I wasn't aware of.

I've looked at the thread that you linked to; your solution is elegant, but it's probably simpler just to get rid of KDE entirely. I'm currently turning my eyeballs towards XFCE.

Edit: LXDE looks quite appealing.
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PostPosted: Sat Jul 20, 2013 2:35 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

leifbk wrote:
It's strange how KMail replicates Amarok, which also went from great to useless in the 1.x -> 2.x upgrade. It's probably the same team behind both.


either a crappy comment or really ignorant one.

the issue with kmail 2 is its imap handling. also, if changing from kmail 1.x ... best to start anew, with new configs. ( old configs and old cache always cripple KDE )

if you want it for the speed , check : http://trojita.flaska.net/ . for me its too unfinished to replace kmail2, but just check its imap speed.

kmail2 never really did any wrong on me. i didnt try to migrate kmail1 -> kmail2 , and started from a clean base.

would like for kmail2 to get trokita's imap implementation though, it would really make it much faster and responsive.
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peakeyed
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PostPosted: Sat Aug 03, 2013 7:53 am    Post subject: ditto Reply with quote

i agree with the opinion that kmail and amarok going from "great" to "useless" along the road somewhere
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toralf
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PostPosted: Sat Aug 03, 2013 8:46 am    Post subject: Re: Goodbye KMail Reply with quote

leifbk wrote:
I gave up, and emerged Thunderbird which looks like a decent enough mail program.
+1
I kicked of KMail + friends i favour of Thunderbird.

I still use KDE - I just deactivated the desktop search.
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ppurka
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PostPosted: Sat Aug 03, 2013 8:53 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hope you have good luck with Thunderbird. I ran into a 100% cpu bug with it - it periodically goes to 100% cpu checking mail or calendars. Usually 2-3 times a minute. It's a great battery killer on a laptop.
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mv
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PostPosted: Sat Aug 03, 2013 10:57 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Although I wrote this already several times:

claws-mail is rather similar to KMail1 and has sane dependencies.
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ppurka
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PostPosted: Sat Aug 03, 2013 10:59 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

mv wrote:
Although I wrote this already several times:

claws-mail is rather similar to KMail1 and has sane dependencies.
I did try claws mail as an alternative to thunderbird. The inferface is really ugly and it is a pain to set up, compared to how simple thunderbird is.
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jimmij
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PostPosted: Sat Aug 03, 2013 12:31 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I always wondered why people use such a huge software for such a simple thing as mail reading.
Its over 10 years that I use pine/alpine and never needed anything else. :roll:
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ppurka
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PostPosted: Sat Aug 03, 2013 12:52 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

jimmij wrote:
I always wondered why people use such a huge software for such a simple thing as mail reading.
Its over 10 years that I use pine/alpine and never needed anything else. :roll:
Indeed alpine is very good for pop or local mail. I had to give up on alpine because it is extremely slow over IMAP. It takes several minutes to open the inbox.

To be frank, I have tried almost all email clients, except for mutt, in Linux. None of them satisfy my requirements today. Handle multiple accounts transparently, be fast, not be a cpu hog, possibly have a calendar that can sync with google calendar, and be stable. Here is the list that I tried, and the bugs I have seen

kmail1 (kde4 interface) - very customizable interface, many bugs when using multiple accounts, no text reflow in editor, when I last used it the integration with google calendar was super buggy
kmail2 - disaster from what I have read online. I don't *trust* my emails with this.
alpine - excellent client, easy customization, except for the fact that it is dog slow over imap
thunderbird - excellent client, excellent integration with google calendar. I still use it on a desktop, but I can't use it on a laptop because of a 100% cpu bug (reproduced across multiple installations)
claws mail - a pain to set up for multiple emails, really ugly interface
trojita - very fast imap (just as they claim it is), but very immature software - no multiple account support
evolution - very unstable. I unmerged it within half an hour of installing it. I wonder if the devs themselves use it.
---------------
mutt - the only one I haven't tried because it is also a pain to set up. Need time to look into this.
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franzf
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PostPosted: Sat Aug 03, 2013 1:08 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Since some time now I use offlineimap + notmuch + afew + several clients/readers/...
Never had so much fun :)
Offineimap is just sitting around, no CPU usage, IDLE works. postsynchook updates notmuch DB (in nearly no time). That's it.
And don't be afraid of the initial indexing with notmuch: It is really fast compared to akonai/nepomuk, ~1 minute for ~10000 mails.

Concerning mutt: It was the first console mailer I tried after I went troughthe same pain: IMAP implementation is not the best/fastest. That's why even with mutt people tend to use offlineimap (+ notmuch for fast search, notmuch comes with a mutt integration, did not try that, yet).
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albright
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PostPosted: Sat Aug 03, 2013 7:06 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
Since some time now I use offlineimap


thanks v. much for the pointer to offlineimap

this might be the simplest way to work around kmail's
terrible imap performance
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lyallp
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PostPosted: Sun Aug 04, 2013 10:12 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I have been using Thunderbird on Gentoo for 10 years now.

I have, at one point, tried other clients like kmail and evolution but I end up back in Thunderbird.

I have TB sync Calendars with google and my owncloud, contacts with my owncloud (which sync with my iPhone), 3 IMAP accounts and 4 pop3 accounts.

Never had a problem.

I use Fluxbox rather than KDE or Gnome as my desktop, so I do wonder if your 100% bug is some integration with desktop search, rather than a bug with Thunderbird.

I will also admit I find the latest 'search' capability of thunderbird (I use version 17) confusing.
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ppurka
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PostPosted: Sun Aug 04, 2013 11:35 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

lyallp wrote:
I use Fluxbox rather than KDE or Gnome as my desktop, so I do wonder if your 100% bug is some integration with desktop search, rather than a bug with Thunderbird.
I don't use kde either - I use e17. It is a very real bug - see an "unconfirmed" bug report in mozilla.
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PostPosted: Mon Aug 05, 2013 6:33 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

The last comment on that bug Thunderbird was to consider it closed for TB 17.
Have you actually applied the suggested change? (increasing the database close interval)
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CkoTuHa
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PostPosted: Mon Aug 05, 2013 8:09 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

In my experience since about kmail2 it works properly.
Of course I have had bunch of 'resource broken' failures messing up my disconnected imap.
As a result my gmail box was a mess since the sync killed all the messages.
But I had backups locally so I quickly uploaded all the crap again. Sure it was inconvenient but nothing to cry about.

I am just wondering isn't OP playing 'drama queen' card too much ? As they say in England "wake up, sunshine" realize how small is your "I" is in this world. Just grow up already.
Again, to sum it up, it(kmail) works - it's a fact. If your instance doesn't work - look into the mirror, mind the gap, install ubuntu for average sixpack and get lucky.
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ppurka
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PostPosted: Mon Aug 05, 2013 8:39 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

CkoTuHa wrote:
In my experience since about kmail2 it works properly.
Of course I have had bunch of 'resource broken' failures messing up my disconnected imap.
As a result my gmail box was a mess since the sync killed all the messages.
But I had backups locally so I quickly uploaded all the crap again. Sure it was inconvenient but nothing to cry about.

I am just wondering isn't OP playing 'drama queen' card too much ? As they say in England "wake up, sunshine" realize how small is your "I" is in this world. Just grow up already.
Again, to sum it up, it(kmail) works - it's a fact. If your instance doesn't work - look into the mirror, mind the gap, install ubuntu for average sixpack and get lucky.
It is not about the mere "inconvenience". Not everyone gets the time to make backups everyday or even every week. Hell, not everyone wants to play around with terrible software bugs in their daily life. For some people, including me, once something is working we let it run for as long as we don't have time to upgrade. We upgrade when we get some time. It is also about trusting your everyday software to not mess up at crucial times.
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franzf
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PostPosted: Mon Aug 05, 2013 9:29 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

CkoTuHa wrote:
I am just wondering isn't OP playing 'drama queen' card too much ? As they say in England "wake up, sunshine" realize how small is your "I" is in this world. Just grow up already.
Again, to sum it up, it(kmail) works - it's a fact. If your instance doesn't work - look into the mirror, mind the gap, install ubuntu for average sixpack and get lucky.

I really would advice you to not think or talk in such a way about people.

Now take your way over to bugs.kde.org and browser some bugs:
https://bugs.kde.org/component-report.cgi?product=kmail2
https://bugs.kde.org/component-report.cgi?product=Akonadi
start with counting critical bugs. Browse some of them. Then get a clue why people are angry about akonadi/kmail2.
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PostPosted: Mon Aug 05, 2013 2:26 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

franzf wrote:
There was (is) USE="-semantic-desktop". But starting with kde-4.11, it will get removed.


The best useflag of all time imho :!:
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PostPosted: Mon Aug 05, 2013 3:38 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

gentooP4 wrote:
franzf wrote:
There was (is) USE="-semantic-desktop". But starting with kde-4.11, it will get removed.


The best useflag of all time imho :!:


Add my vote ! Is ( was :) ) the best demonstration of the power of Gentoo architecture.
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