Hi,

I am new to this group, so pardon my ignorance and not following protocol of the group.

I have been using TB and I think, it's just fine. I have seen people swearing by Outlook's calender. Sharing, public entry, private entry -- is it possible in any open source mail client?

thanks, Shraddha

Sharninder wrote:

...

so if they are not a replacement for MS Outlook, then which open source clients are a good replacement for MS Outlook?

That depends on what you want out of MS Outlook and how many of those enterprises features do you really use.

If you only want email and are happy accessing them over imap/pop3, any of the open source clients will do the job. If you want to access email over MAPI, which is the protocol MS Outlook uses, evolution has a MAPI plugin, which is quite new and still a little buggy, but it works. Evolution also nicely integrates with the gnome desktop and has a decent calender application.

If you want features of outlook like delegation and other advanced features, IMO, there is nothing like that which is open source. I might be wrong, though.

The thing with Outlook is that it integrates tightly with Exchange server and uses proprietary protocols to do so, which the open source world doesn't have access to. If you remove Exchange server from the picture and use something like zimbra, instead, you'd have similar functionality in the open source world too.

-- Sharninder http://geekyninja.com

On Friday 04 September 2009, sameer shinde wrote:

I've another concern of looking at the mail clients.(from the system manager's view not the user) i.e. storeing the emial files & folders in your harddisk. The Outlook manages it very nicely in a single file ( a popularly known as pst file)

Moving backward in time to a discredited and obsolete method of storing all mails in a single file - mbox. Why is a single file bad? locks. Enter the maildir format to solve your vanishing mails woes. http://cr.yp.to/proto/maildir.html

Where as most other clients do it in many folders ways ( including outlook express), a seperate folder for inbox, send mail & other. With single file its very easy to store/backup/x'fer all the emails. I'm testing many email clients but so far I've not found this feature in any email client than the MS outlook.

Naturally. Only M$ will select the worst method and format.

I'm not even bothering about which email server one is using as I've worked on MS exchange as well as Zimbra.

Sameer Shinde.
M:- +91 98204 61580
Millions saw the apple fall, but Newton was the one who asked why.

On Friday 04 September 2009, sameer shinde wrote:

On Fri, Sep 4, 2009 at 4:02 PM, jtdjtd@mtnl.net.in wrote:

...

On Friday 04 September 2009, sameer shinde wrote:

Moving backward in time to a discredited and obsolete method of storing all mails in a single file - mbox. Why is a single file bad? locks. Enter the maildir format to solve your vanishing mails woes. http://cr.yp.to/proto/maildir.html

...

Where as most other clients do it in many folders ways ( including

Naturally. Only M$ will select the worst method and format.

Somehow I'm not conveyance with the ans.

You dont have to be convinced about technical arguments. Not until your pst file gets screwed or your data vanishes without a trace. But if you are clever you will check out what file locking, security etc. is about.

If MS were so bad, it would have not been so popular.

Aha i see. You need to grep the list to know how M$ uses your money to convince you about their popularity, lower TCO, stability, user friendliness etc. Or simply take our word for it and switch, or not be convinced at all and continue throwing good money after bad - the choice is entirely yours - it's your money, data and computer after all.

I'm not the supporter of MS but I don't blame either.

Hmm. The courts think otherwise and fined them a fat sum - your money actually.

But we digress.

The GNU/Linux environment will almost always have tools that exceed most closed software in every metric. However it is very rare to find bad practices and piecemeal "thook-patti" merely to imitate some M$ thingy or the other. If you have defined your "real" requirements, you will have any number of choices and permutations to pick from. So while looking for alternatives do take the trouble to define requirements correctly.

On a side note, sometimes when some piece of software / functionality is missing, it will be due to patents and at such times the decision to use closed software now, at the risk of a downside in the future has to be looked at very carefully.

On Fri, Sep 4, 2009 at 2:49 PM, Sharninder sharninder@gmail.com wrote:

...

so if they are not a replacement for MS Outlook, then which open source clients are a good replacement for MS Outlook?

have you considered openexchange ?

--

Sharninder http://geekyninja.com -- http://mm.glug-bom.org/mailman/listinfo/linuxers

To add more, I'm using Spicebird which looks much promising. Though it's still in beta, the features are nice.

Please visit the following link for the detailed list of features: http://www.spicebird.com/spicebird/0.7/releasenotes

Homepage: http://www.spicebird.com/

steve wrote:

On 09/04/2009 02:25 PM, sameer shinde wrote:

...

Hi All,

Many times we say that email clients like Mozilla Thunderbird, Eudora, are an open source email clients which are good replacements for MS Outlook Express and MS Outlook. But are these really a replacement for MS outlook? I can agree that they are a good replacement for MS Outlook Express but not for MS Outlook.

so if they are not a replacement for MS Outlook, then which open source clients are a good replacement for MS Outlook?

That's right. Thunderbird by itself is just an email client. What you are looking for is an integrated mail, calendering, note taking ...etc application. Here's a list you can go through: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_personal_information_managers

I've used evolution[1] and zimbra[2] both in corporate environments and have found both good for my limited use of such things. I had also used Mozilla lightning[3] for thunderbird which you might also want to evaluate.

Note, that you can also search for additional 'addons'[4] to Mozilla Thunderbird for things that you miss about Outlook.

HTH, cheers,

• steve

[1] http://projects.gnome.org/evolution/ [2] http://www.zimbra.com/ [3] http://www.mozilla.org/projects/calendar/ [4] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/

On Fri, Sep 4, 2009 at 4:31 PM, scraposcrapo@saswatabanerjee.com wrote:

I believe, microsoft exchange has implemented outlook web / webservice that gives the entire outlook function in a browser if you do not want to install a separate outlook client software. That may change your requirements if you are moving to Linux OS

No I'm not moving to Linux OS as I'm very well using Vista & Ubuntu 8.04 but while comparing the copyrighted software angaint the Opensource alternatives it always gives a ques mark in my mind about MS Outlook!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Sameer Shinde. M:- +91 98204 61580 Millions saw the apple fall, but Newton was the one who asked why.

Hi Sameer,

On 09/04/2009 04:52 PM, sameer shinde wrote:

On Fri, Sep 4, 2009 at 4:31 PM, scraposcrapo@saswatabanerjee.com wrote:

...

I believe, microsoft exchange has implemented outlook web / webservice that gives the entire outlook function in a browser if you do not want to install a separate outlook client software. That may change your requirements if you are moving to Linux OS

No I'm not moving to Linux OS as I'm very well using Vista& Ubuntu 8.04

Like Shakhti pointed out, Ubuntu is a Linux OS. Linux refers to the kernel. There are different companies and organizations that take the kernel and some Free and open source applications (such as desktops, mail clients, browsers, multi-media players ..etc) and package it all together into what we call distributions. Ubuntu is one such distribution, packaged and distributed by a company named canonical.

but while comparing the copyrighted software angaint the Opensource alternatives it always gives a ques mark in my mind about MS Outlook!

Maybe if you tell us, exactly what functionality you need, we might be able to help you out better.

When migrating between OSes it is often useful to approach the problems with the mindset of finding the 'correct' solution, rather that the equivalent one.

For example, on linux, securing the system means a very different thing than on Windows. On Windows, one of the most important steps of securing a system is installing an anti-virus package. However, doing that on linux does not make much sense. Anti-virus packages that runs on linux do not exist for the same reason as for windows. So, if you ask, "what are the available anti-virus packages on Linux ?", you will get answers, but that won't really get you too far with the task of securing your system.

So, to summarize, tell us what you are trying to achieve and we might be able to help you better.

BTW, in a different mail you mentioned ...

I'm not even bothering about which email server one is using as I've worked on MS exchange as well as Zimbra.

Well, Zimbra is not just a mail server, in the same way that Outlook is not just a mail client. Zimbra comes with a server and a client which support all sorts of PIM tasks such as email, calendering, scheduling ..etc

I don't use KDE much, but i think you might also be interested in evaluating the KDE PIM suite.

...and lastly, when looking "from the system manager's view", it is important to at least have some basic idea of the technologies you are interested in to make the correct choice which works for you.

cheers, - steve

Arun Khan wrote:

On Friday 04 Sep 2009, scrapo wrote:

...

I believe, microsoft exchange has implemented outlook web / webservice that gives the entire outlook function in a browser if you do not want to install a separate outlook client software. That may change your requirements if you are moving to Linux OS

My brother's company has implemented their messaging infra on MS Exchange. However, he has to use the IE browser to use all the features. This was about a year back - don't know if things have changed for the better i.e. compatibility with FF and other browsers.

Yes, the facility has been available for some time. And it mostly works with FF also.

IMO, Evolution has the closest look and feel with MS Outlook. It is part of the Linux distros and there is a win32 port as well.