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Friday, April 19, 2013

Migrating to kmail2

Ok, I know, migrating to kmail2 is old news now. But only today I decided to try migrating to kmail2. Gentoo is going to remove kmail1 from their repository in a few months so I did not have much of a choice.

My kmail1 configuration included one pop3 account, one gmail account and some local folders. The migration process finished and then nepomuk started indexing my e-mails (my laptop's fan screamed for several hours hehe). During the indexing process kmail2 exited with the message "Failed to fetch the resource collection". After some search on google I found this blog that explained how to fix that (it is simple, really). Then I had a problem with e-mails not being sent. The error message talked about mailfilteragent, which is installed by kmail2 itself but is started by akonadi. Restarting akonadi made it recognise the new agent and the problem was fixed.

After importing my local folders manually (the migration process did not do that) I configured my mail filters and waited until nepomuk finished indexing my e-mails.

So far so good using kmail2, no crashes and everything works almost like the old kmail1. One exception was the "go to the next unread message when opening a folder" option that is disabled by default. Alex Fistas helped me with that and now I can do with kmail2 everything I used to do with kmail1.

Update: well, the "so far so good" did not last a day :-/ I have found this really annoying bug and submitted a patch to reviewborad to fix it. With luck this will enter 4.10.3.

5 comments:

Rsh said...

Just don't forget to backup your emails on a regular basis. Akonadi likes to die.

Lamarque said...

@Rsh, akonadi is just a cache, the e-mails are safe in the server or in the local filesystem :-P

Anonymous said...

Akonadi may be a cache, but the resources need to communicate with the server and have access to the local file system. There are still enough open bug reports (on kmail2 and akonadi), where users have lost all mails from one or several folders or got empty mails - both local and on the server! Data was lost...

Lamarque said...

Well, so far so good :-) No lost e-mail although I noticed that not all my emails in may gmail account are visible with kmail2 (specially old e-mails). I am trying to figure out why that happens. I can access those emails using gmail's website.

Anonymous said...

Yes. I'm one od those who has lost mails and notes (Kjots) «thanks» to Akonadi.

Graphical environments and graphical applications in Linux work rather badly compared with Apple or Windows. This makes an desktop Linux box less trustable than other OS based boxes: crashes, data loses, misconfigurations, small bugs (sometimes, I repeat, sometimes, easyly solvable for experienced users, but still bugs) that should not ever happen, as the don't happen in MacOs or Windows, and average users can't solve them.

It's almost inutile to have the best widespread kernel and libraries if your graphic server sucks, your desktops break here and there (it's embarrasing to install a KDE distro for a friend you have evangelized, and see how the first thing on his screen is a dialog advising about a crash. Really embarrasing, believe me), your programs break too, or just don't work after some time running...

So, we couldn't expect anything different from Kmail/Akonadi; ergo I recommend everybody to keep a backup of their delicate information, and use web apps like Gmail's (in fact I'd recommend to use a privacy friendly mail server like autistici.org), avoiding KDE desktop ones as much as possible (of course. If you are on Mac, Windows, Gnome, or even in KDE but using GTK programs like Firefox or Thunderbird, solid rock ones, it'll be very rare for you to have any important issue)

I suppose y'all, devs, have already thought about this I'm going to say many thimes, but, have you tried to get public subsidies?
Most developed countries help non profit organizations, especially if they promote knowledge and industrial development. It would be a huge help if some money could allow people like you to work 35 hour a week in your projects, in a professional (not just an aficionado-on-his-free-time one) environment who earned their beans with their work for KDE, instead being only able to work in their free time, without enough time to revise their software, to fix bugs, read and study to improve their programming skills and global vision, etc.

Linux kernel is developed by tons of people who are dedicated profesionally to Linux since companies like Intel, IBM, etc, etc, employ them to do that. That's their job. Linux desktops and graphical programs need something similar: private or public financing to pay a salary for people to work in KDE and only in KDE.

A dream we can't realize with our few dozen euros a year in donations. It's needed more money, much more, to make Linux Desktop sofware any close to Apple's or Windows', and finally have a Kmail/Akonadi which don't destroy users' data o wich dont stay for a minute trying to connect to an IMAP server, which is graphically snappy, etc.

Please, spread this idea among KDE devs, and especially among national KDE groups and cpmmunities if it isn't spread yet. Perhams we could have somr agreeable surprise, :).



Best regards