Choosing an E-Mail Client for Linux

[DavidMD]

Hello, everyone.

I am in the process of replacing the hard drives and AGP graphics card in my main Linux workstation.

I am also removing Windows XP Professional, ending the "messiness" of dual-booting, except for adding additional Linux distributions. Early this year, I purchased a used Dell Dimension 8300, on which I will install Windows XP Professional. I actually do not anticipate using Windows or the Dell very much, thanks to my determination to use Linux as my primary operating system. :)

I am going to give SuSE Linux 10.1 (retail version, because I can get installation support) a shot on my revamped Linux workstation. In the past, I have used KDE as my desktop environment and KMail as my e-mail client.

I would like to use another e-mail client. For one reason, I would like to be able to send the occasional message in Russian/Cyrillic to my many friends in Ukraine who speak Russian; they, however, use Windows Cyrillic encoding. :( (Setting up Linux and an e-mail client to accomplish this goal are subjects for a separate thread, however.)

My initial "short list" of candidates for e-mail clients is as follows:

- Sylpheed (http://sylpheed.good-day.net/en/)

Sylpheed is lightweight and includes the following features (based, verbatim, upon information on the Sylpheed home page):

* Simple, beautiful, and well-polished user interface
* Comfortable operationality which is built in detail
* Immediately available with minimal configuration
* Lightweight operation
* High reliability
* Internationalization and Multilingualization support
* High-level Japanese processing
* Various protocols support
* Security features (GnuPG, SSL/TLSv1)
* Powerful filtering and search
* Junk mail control
* Flexible cooperation with external commands

- Mozilla Thunderbird (http://www.mozilla.com/thunderbird/)

- Novell Evolution (http://www.gnome.org/projects/evolution/)

(Evolution is not really a serious candidate. I do not need many of its features.)

- KMail (http://kmail.kde.org/)

(It did serve me well in the past, but I have not researched its ability to handle Russian/Cyrillic messages.)

I would appreciate any suggestions based upon experience or even reviews that you have read. I am especially interested in people's experience with Sylpheed, which is a text-only (no HTML) client. (I do not like the bloat and security risk of HTML messages; I have always configued KMail as text only, for example.)

I am going to install the XFCE (http://www.xfce.org/) desktop environment and give it a serious try as my default, but I realize that I could end up going back to KDE, although I want to maximize my use of system resources.

(My Linux tower, which I built myself, has a 2.0-GHz Pentium-4 processor, without hyperthreading, and 1-GB of RAM, which I realize is not very fast compared to the typical, modern Linux workstation. The Dell Dimension 8300 has a 3.0-GHz Pentium-4 but case ventilation is almost non-existent; plus, I am attached to the machine that I built for myself, although I cannot afford a new motherboard, processor, or RAM to upgrade it right now. It is, however, very well ventilated!) :)

Finally, if you have any comparative data about how each of the above clients handles spam, I would be grateful. I am also open to suggestions of other e-mail clients. :D

Thank you, in advance, for your suggestions and ideas!

Cordially,

David

[Parcival]

I would pick Thunderbird because it follows you to whatever OS you travel. The only reason I gave up on Thunderbird is because GMail does this even faster. :D

[leonpmu]

I use Kontact (Kmail) and here we type in french, with some of the funny characters and they seem to come out OK, as long as you have the correct chracter set installed, it should be fine...

[DavidMD]

Hello, Parcival!I would pick Thunderbird because it follows you to whatever OS you travel. The only reason I gave up on Thunderbird is because GMail does this even faster. :DThank you for your message; it is nice to hear from you.

I use Gmail most of the time, but I have several accounts with my ISP, Comcast.net, one of which I reserve for my Linux workstation.

At a technical-writing job that I had for a few months earlier this year, the CTO allowed us to select our e-mail clients. (Everyone in development was running Windows XP Professional, including me, on a Dell Latitude laptop.)

Although I had Microsoft Office 2003 Professional installed on my laptop, I did not select to use Outlook, for security reasons, and I used Thunderbird.

My only complaints about it were (1) when I wrote a reply to a message, the text above the person's original message was simply "[Name] wrote (said?):," with no date or time. In my replies, I like to include the date and time of the original message, so I had to get that information from the header, and then copy and paste.

In addition (2), I could find no way to force Thunderbird not to receive and process HTML messages. There was no way to make all messages text only (which is the only format the Sylpheed accepts, as well as the e-mail client that I use with Mac OS X, Mailsmith (http://www.barebones.com/products/mailsmith/)).

I tried sending messages in Russian with early versions of Thunderbird, but the program forced me to use UTF-8 encoding and recipients received "gibberish," although I believe that Thunderbird now allows you to select encoding for individual messages.

I have not researched to see if there might be a plug-in for Thunderbird to correct my first complaint about dates and times in replies, although I believe that such a feature should be standard in any e-mail client. (Even Gmail offers this feature.) :)

Thunderbird would certainly be the easiest option, because I am familiar with it. Do you use Thunderbird, Parcival?

Thank you, again, for your message, time, and consideration.

Cordially,

David

P.S. -- I would love to hear from some Sylpheed users. Are you happy with Sylpheed? Have you had any major problems with it? If you used another e-mail client before, what prompted you to switch to Sylpheed?

Thank you very much, in advance, for any input, advice, or opinions! :D

[DavidMD]

Hello, 'leonpmu'.I use Kontact (Kmail) and here we type in french, with some of the funny characters and they seem to come out OK, as long as you have the correct chracter set installed, it should be fine...Thank you very much for taking the time to respond to my query.

I assume that your Linux distribution (SuSE) is set up with the default language of French? I really do not want to set up my SuSE interface in Russian just because I occasionally send personal messages to Ukraine in Russian. ;)

KMail has served me well for four years, but I wrote all of my messages in my default language of English, and most of the messages that I received were security and update messages from SuSE/Novell.

I have never tried to add secondary language support to Linux (for writing OpenOffice.org documents or e-mail messages, for example), so I clearly have some serious research ahead of me. (I am not even sure what terms to use in an advanced Google for Linux (http://www.google.com/linux) search.)

I remember when I first configured KMail that I liked the fact that I could set it to send and receive messages in text-only format. I always felt secure using it, although I realize that the only secure computer is one not connected to the Internet. :)

Thank you, again, 'leonpmu', for your help!

Cordially,

David
------------------------------
Getting ready to install SuSE 10.1 (retail), with trepidation.... :p

[loopback48]

Except for business reasons, I just can't see using a mail client. What with the problems that come with it (virii, malware, etc - with MS ) why in the world would anyone even think about using one. Even if your a Linux user, there is always the possiblity of passing on a problem. I don't care how good the client is, in my opinion, Web mail it the only way to go. I've been doing it this way for years. And I just can't see doing it any other way.

Just my opinion.

[leonpmu]

Actually, no, my system is in english, but I have input setup for french, so that we can use the characters, I am not frnech speaking natively, I am english speaking, but in a french speaking country, where both are written and spoken, so the systems need to be setup for such eventualities...

[DavidMD]

Hello, 'loopback48'.Except for business reasons, I just can't see using a mail client. What with the problems that come with it (virii, malware, etc - with MS ) why in the world would anyone even think about using one. Even if your a Linux user, there is always the possiblity of passing on a problem. I don't care how good the client is, in my opinion, Web mail it the only way to go. I've been doing it this way for years. And I just can't see doing it any other way.

Just my opinion.Thank you for taking the time to share your opinion, which is exactly what I want people to do. :)

You make excellent points about Web-based e-mail, 'loopback48'.

I personally, however, like the convenience of having my messages stored on my Linux system by my e-mail client and to be able to search and read sent and received e-mail messages, without having to access, for example, one of my several Gmail accounts via the Web.

Your comment about not inadvertently spreading viruses (acting as a vector, one might say) :), is an extremely valid and important one -- and another reason why I appreciate your sharing your opinion!

Simply because, as Linux users, we may not be vulnerable to a Windows virus, for example, does not mean that we should ignore the fact that we are members of the worldwide Internet community and have a responsibility to protect others, as well as ourselves, from viruses, worms, and other evils.

I am adding new hardware to my Linux workstation, including new hard drives and a better AGP video card, so I will be doing a "clean installation" of Linux.

Although I have not decided which antivirus program to install on my Linux workstation (and I would appreciate suggestions very much), I definitely plan to do so.

Not installing antiviral software, at least for me personally, would be irresponsible. I would hate to be a "Typhoid Mary" computer on the 'Net, spreading viruses to, say, colleagues using Windows, when I can very easily prevent such situations from occurring.

Thank you, again, 'loopback48'! :)

Cordially,

David

[DavidMD]

Hello, 'leonpmu'.Actually, no, my system is in english, but I have input setup for french, so that we can use the characters, I am not frnech speaking natively, I am english speaking, but in a french speaking country, where both are written and spoken, so the systems need to be setup for such eventualities...Thank you for your reply.

I assume that you are responding to my comment that, although my default/native language for Linux is English, I would like to send the occasional message in Russian/Cyrillic to several friends in Ukraine (mainly, Odessa/Odesa, but one friend in Kiev/Kyiv).

Setting up two or more input languages in "Windoze" and Mac OS X is very simple. The options appear during the installation process to do so.

I have used SuSE Linux only (and mostly KDE), and I do not recall seeing such an option, so I assume that I need to search the Web for instructions on how to add Russian/Cyrillic as a secondary input language. I know that others need or want such an option, too, so I just need to do the necessary research (and hope that I use the proper terms in my advanced Google/Linux searches).

If one must set up this option via one's desktop environment, I will have to determine if such is the case and follow the instructions for doing so. (I plan to start using XFCE (http://www.xfce.org/) -- or, at least, give it a serious try -- when I do my "clean installation" of Linux. I can always check the XFCE.org forums for advice if I need to set up a secondary input language via XFCE.)

One potential "glitch" that I may face is that literally all of my friends in Ukraine are using Windows (98) and use the Windows Cyrillic method of encoding any e-mail that is in Russian or contains Russian text. If I send them a message in UTF-8/Russian, they will definitely not be pleased with me. :p

Obviously, I need to give this topic much research, in addition to selecting an e-mail client for Linux.

In addition, I need to revisit Thunderbird. In the earliest versions, UTF-8 encoding was the only option for all of Thunderbird's outgoing messages, but I know the situation has changed since Thunderbird's early days, because I used it on a corporate laptop during a three-month, contract, technical-writing project for a company (although I had to use Windows, unfortunately) very early this year.

Thank you, again, 'leonpmu'! I am curious about how you are able to send e-mail messages in French, if your Linux system is set up with English as the environment's language. (For example, I need to learn how to install the correct Russian character set, and then how to switch between English and Russian for input.)

I would be grateful for any tips from you, or anyone else. :)

Cordially,

David

[gearjunkie]

David,

I have used sylpheed and thunderbird both fairly extensively, however, the lsat time I used sylpheed was about a year ago. I used it as my primary email client for several months before switching to thunderbird.

Sylpheed is very good at being a simple, easy to use client. It is very intuitive, and supports pgp encryption. I have not used the junk mail detection on sylpheed, because it was not implemented by the time I used it.

After saying that, I have switched exclusively to thunderbird right now. The main reason is that the extensions for thunderbird make it very easy to customize what you can do with it, and how you can use it. Just take a spin around the mozilla add-ons (https://addons.mozilla.org/extensions.php?app=thunderbird) site. There are some really nice ones out there, and the possibilities with them are pretty endless. Thunderbird also has all the features of sylpheed, but I feel like there are some additional options that sylpheed doesn't have that thunderbird does.

Oh yeah, and thunderbird will definitely let you customize the 'message sent by...' text, I don't remember exactly how to do it, but I know I did it with mine.... You can also set the default outgoing mail to always be text-only, or only reply in html when the original message was html, or you can even set up your contacts so that each contact has a default message type (html vs. text).

The only thing I can't comment on is the language support.

Bottom line is: they're both free (beer and speech), install them and try them out! I think the one you like will work itself out once you get a chance to play with them both.

Good luck!

-nathan

[DavidMD]

Hello, Nathan!David,

I have used sylpheed and thunderbird both fairly extensively, however, the lsat time I used sylpheed was about a year ago. I used it as my primary email client for several months before switching to thunderbird.

Sylpheed is very good at being a simple, easy to use client. It is very intuitive, and supports pgp encryption. I have not used the junk mail detection on sylpheed, because it was not implemented by the time I used it.

After saying that, I have switched exclusively to thunderbird right now. The main reason is that the extensions for thunderbird make it very easy to customize what you can do with it, and how you can use it. Just take a spin around the mozilla add-ons (https://addons.mozilla.org/extensions.php?app=thunderbird) site. There are some really nice ones out there, and the possibilities with them are pretty endless. Thunderbird also has all the features of sylpheed, but I feel like there are some additional options that sylpheed doesn't have that thunderbird does.

Oh yeah, and thunderbird will definitely let you customize the 'message sent by...' text, I don't remember exactly how to do it, but I know I did it with mine.... You can also set the default outgoing mail to always be text-only, or only reply in html when the original message was html, or you can even set up your contacts so that each contact has a default message type (html vs. text).

The only thing I can't comment on is the language support.

Bottom line is: they're both free (beer and speech), install them and try them out! I think the one you like will work itself out once you get a chance to play with them both.

Good luck!

-nathanThank you very much for your detailed message and your comparison of Sylpheed and Thunderbird.

If you remember how you customized the "message sent by" text, please let me know. I was working about 70/hours per week at the job where I used Thunderbird on a WinXP Pro laptop, and I did not have time to try to solve this irritating little problem. I am glad to learn from you, Nathan, that there is a solution.

I know that Sypheed is supposed to have good spam filtering, but then Thunderbird does as well.

I did not try to send any test messages in Russian when I was using Thunderbird with WinXP Pro early this year. I had Russian (RU) set up as my secondary input language in Windows, and saw that I was able to set the encoding in Thunderbird to Windows Cyrillic. Because I was using a client's laptop for the project, I did not feel that it was ethical for me to do anything personal on their hardware.

One thing I have not studied seriously for Linux is how to create secondary input languages (for e-mail and word processing, for example). I have done some searching on the Web, but have not found the right key word combinations during my Google/Linux searches. :(

I know that Linux has the capability to do what I want, but I simply have not found the needed on-line documentation. (I have several Linux books but none of them even remotely touches on this issue, despite the fact that the Internet has made the world seem much smaller.) :confused:

I should be able to get Thunderbird to send and receive Russian messages. People all over the world are obviously using Linux to write and read in multiple languages.

When I did use Thunderbird early this year, Nathan, I set it to send and reply with plain text only, but I do not recall having an option to prevent it from receiving HTML messages (which are dangerous, and one of my "pet peeves," because they are so bloated). :p

I definitely will also check out the Thunderbird extensions, Nathan. I have found some fantastic Firefox extensions.

Speaking of Linux e-mail clients, Nathan, I stumbled upon TkRat (http://www.tkrat.org/) today. It was interesting to learn about the client simply because it is so lightweight, although I do not think that it has any anti-spam features. (I have even revisted MUAs such as Pine and Mutt, but I am not sure that I want to "travel back in time" to how I wrote messages in the early 1990s!) :D

Thank you, again, Nathan, for your time, patience, and help!

Cordially,

David