I will say again, for the record, I am not a fan of bloated GUI desktops like KDE and GNOME. I am a GUI minimalist and use the fluxbox window manager for my “GUI desktop”. However, I do like some of the applications that are available for both KDE and GNOME. For a long time now I have been using Kmail and then Kontact with Kmail for my e-mail needs. With Kontact/Kmail I have saved a few thousand messages in Maildir format going back several years, have dozens of contacts both personal and professional, and over 200 filters to keep messages organized. I have been pleased with Kontact/Kmail … until now.
You see, the KDE folks decided to pretty much dump everything prior to KDE4 and rewrite KDE4 and applications for same from the ground up while rethinking everything to make it “better”. While this is a commendable idea, it stinks in the real world out here where we who rely on these applications for real work get to deal with the consequences of these actions. Frankly, I blame both the KDE project and the many distributions that jumped on the KDE4 bandwagon before that thing had enough wheels. My best friend in the world, who is a former KDE fanatic, has stated she will never use KDE again after moving all her stuff to GNOME. My friend is so adamantly opposed to the direction of KDE4 that she refuses to use any QT applications that are designed for KDE and has completely migrated to all GTK / GNOME based applications. She was determined to do this because of all the problems she had with the “new” and “improved” KDE4. The last straw for her was when Amarok “broke” and no longer worked like her beloved Amarok 1.4. I had to help her with her Kontact to Evolution migration, which for her needs was fairly simple. Now it is my turn, and it is not so simple for me. I have actually dreaded having to make this move.
Why leave Kontact? After upgrading my Linux distribution and all the applications for same, my Kmail address book is not working correctly. It now uses akonadi or whatever for managing the contacts and will just stop responding after a while. Given enough time, I could likely figure out how to fix it. I do not believe I should have to figure out how to fix it. The address book / contact list should just work always. Even after a major update it should still just work always. I honestly do not have the time to fix it, then hope it does not break again with the next KDE4 update, then fix it again when it breaks again. All this is a result of the KDE folk deciding on a rewrite and the Linux distributions deciding to include alpha level KDE4 software. Thus, I am moving to something that is stable and I can expect to keep working even after an upgrade.
Enter Evolution. Before closing Kontact for, hopefully, the last time I restarted it to get the address book working long enough to export my contacts. Then I closed Kontact and copied my Maildir mail from Kmail to a new ~/mail/ directory in preparation for migrating to Evolution. Unfortunately I know of no way to export / import my 200+ filters I have created in Kmail, so I will just have to recreate those as needed while using Evolution. I then started Evolution for the first time and ran through the setup of my initial e-mail account. I have several e-mail accounts that would have to be added later. Then the “Evolution Setup Assistant” got to the “Importing files” screen. I deselected both options and clicked the [->Forward] button. Nothing happened. No matter what I did on this window, no going forward. So, I canceled, started the process again and got the same result at the same spot. This was not looking good.
I opened an xterm and restarted Evolution setup by typing evolution at the command prompt. When I got to the page that was hanging, the xterm terminal window displayed this:
(evolution:29817): Gtk-CRITICAL **: Page flow is broken, you may want to end it with a page of type GTK_ASSISTANT_PAGE_CONFIRM or GTK_ASSISTANT_PAGE_SUMMARY
A critical error was not going to let me proceed. I pondered the problem a bit and then decided to try running the setup from within a GNOME session. Luckily under Linux I can switch to a console screen, login with my user account and then type startx gnome-session — :1 to start GNOME without having to exit my preferred fluxbox. Regardless, that did not work either. Then I noticed I had some updates waiting for installation. On a hunch I checked the updates. Sure enough there was one for Evolution. Figuring this could not make things worse, I installed the update to Evolution and removed the .evolution directory that had been created during the failed setup. That solved the problem and I was able to get Evolution set up with an initial e-mail account.
I then restarted Evolution and imported my contacts. Since I had exported the contacts from Kaddressbook to a LDIF file the import worked flawlessly. Then I had to set up a “bogus” account to access the ~/mail/ directory with all my Maildir files in it. I created an account named Maildir and pointed it to that directory. Evolution “saw” all my old e-mail and displayed the “folders”. The old Kmail Maildir directories that began with a period had to be reorganized to get Evolution to work correctly with the Maildir structure. The new directories have no preceding period. I had to close Evolution and use a file manager (mc) to get rid of all the directories that had a leading period after I reorganized everything.
At this point I began to set up all my e-mail addresses, both business and personal, and began creating filters to organize the messages in the Maildir format as that is what I prefer. Since I had over 200 filters in Kmail I am obviously not going to be able to recreate them all from memory. I plan to recreate them as needed while sending and receiving e-mail. This is how I managed to get that many filters in the first place. This will let me learn the Evolution filtering system as I go along. So far, I am not too fond of the separate inbound and outbound filters. In my opinion both should be accessible from the same window without having to switch back and forth. I seriously miss the Kmail filter option to set a single filter to work for both inbound and outbound messages. But I will get used to the new way even though I find it irritating to need to create two filters that are just alike, one for inbound and one for outbound, to keep my messages organized.
What I would have liked to see for this migration:
- Evolution setup asks me if I am migrating from Kontact/Kmail and just handle all the grunt work for me. Yeah, I’m lazy and just lay around all day so I have time to do this myself … not.
- Evolution filters give an option to import filters from another popular e-mail application. Like maybe, oh let’s just pick one at random, Kmail.
- Evolution DEFAULT to using Maildir.
Now that I am using Evolution I look forward to not having to change my e-mail application ever again for as long as I live. Amen.
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Edit Wed Sep 29 01:46:16 CDT 2010: Add URL for mc project site.
Hi All,
FYI, I successfully imported my KDE4 calendar from Korganizer into Evolution using these steps:
* Open File -> Import in Evolution
* Import a single file
* Filename -> ~/.kde4/share/apps/korganizer/std.ics
* Click through the rest of the prompts
Some systems may have just .kde instead of .kde4, so be aware of that. Evolution automagically recognized this as an iCal file. My recurring events, such as the local once every second Thursday of each month LUG meeting, all imported without error.
Hi Again,
I had been using Akregator for RSS feed reading. Since that is now part of Kontact, I am no longer using it. I chose Liferea to replace Akregator. Liferea imported the Akregator feeds from:
~/.kde4/share/apps/akregator/data/feeds.opml
I lost my current feed count, but that is a small price to pay to get away from the problems with KDE4′s personal information management SNAFU.
Hello Once More,
I will put a rough timeline on this migration, including time I had to be away from my desk and could not work on this. I started late Monday afternoon, 2010/09/27, expecting to be done in a couple of hours. I finally finished getting my news feeds back up with Liferea and setting up my e-mail accounts around 2:00 PM today, 2010/09/29. Of course I will be recreating filters for quite a while since I am only creating them again as messages come in and go out.
In my role as a small business owner of a SOHO business I have several business e-mail addresses that had to be set up. Then I have two e-mail addresses that get mail from client servers as part of our company monitoring service. Then I have three local e-mail addresses to monitor my own servers and my local desktop, all of which have cron jobs that send e-mailed reports.
As you can see, my e-mail use is probably atypical compared to average end-users. My friend’s migration was comparatively very simple as she only has one e-mail address. I had the fun of learning how to do the Maildir mail in Evolution with her mail.
[...] Open Source: My Migration from Kontact to Evolution [...]
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Karolina Lipska, Chad Martin. Chad Martin said: Open Source: My Migration from Kontact to Evolution: Open Source: My Migration from Kontact to EvolutionEvolution … http://bit.ly/9vJutH [...]
“My friend is so adamantly opposed to the direction of KDE4 that she refuses to use any QT applications that are designed for KDE and has completely migrated to all GTK / GNOME based applications.”
I’m sure we’ll miss your best friend. We’ve found many new such best friends during this process, however. Maybe we’ll see you and your best friend again. Fickle is as fickle does, after all.
“The address book / contact list should just work always.”
I agree.
“Even after a major update it should still just work always.”
True. It was broken for one x.y release, and fixed in x.y+1. That was still too much, but at least it’s fixed, and was done so pretty switfly.
“All this is a result of the KDE folk deciding on a rewrite and the Linux distributions deciding to include alpha level KDE4 software.”
For others reading this blog: some things have been rewritten, most things have not. Big brushes, these bloggers paint with.
“Thus, I am moving to something that is stable and I can expect to keep working even after an upgrade.”
Good luck with that.
Aaron Seigo, thanks for reading and replying.
Do you truly attempt to represent the entire KDE project with your responses? I pray someone with more tact from the KDE team speaks up.
You dismiss us as unimportant, “I’m sure we’ll miss your best friend. We’ve found many new such best friends during this process, however.” Thank you ever so much.
Then you insult us, “Fickle is as fickle does, after all.” How nice of you. Do you believe it is helpful calling users “fickle” because they found the new direction of the KDE project does not solve their problems or meet their needs? I do not see how that helps.
You also say, “For others reading this blog: some things have been rewritten, most things have not. Big brushes, these bloggers paint with.” I do admit to using hyperbole somewhat. The statement I made is over-generalizing. Regardless, my “big brushes” are pointing out problems with this process the KDE team has started. Instead of going on the defensive, how about just admitting the process has been mishandled and work to make sure that a release actually functions before sending it out to those of your users who need the applications to work?
Edit Sat Oct 2 13:52:08 CDT 2010: Clarify the last paragraph in this comment a bit.
@Gene: “I had been using Akregator for RSS feed reading. Since that is now part of Kontact, I am no longer using it.”
Sorry, but the premise is a load of bollocks. Akregtor is still a stand-alone piece of software. It’s also a plugin Kontact. You get to choose how to run it. Neither requires the other.
“I lost my current feed count, but that is a small price to pay to get away from the problems with KDE4?s personal information management SNAFU.”
Or you could have just run Akregrator as you always did stand-alone, had your cake and eaten it too. Instead your moved to another piece of software that lost you data in the process .. and you proclaim satisfaction. Amazing.
Aaron Seigo, thanks again.
Yes, one can run all the applications outside of Kontact, including Akregator, for now. Thank you for pointing that out. Will it stay that way? I have no confidence that the KDE team will keep these as separate applications given the other actions taken that did not seem to have a care for the end-users.
Actually, I had not been all that satisfied with Akregator for a while now. Akregator seemed to crash on occasion and thus took all of Kontact with it at the most inopportune times. Such as when I was replying to important business e-mail. Yes, I could run it outside of Kontact and still run Kontact for all the other PIM functions (I think I could anyway). But having all that in one window under Kontact was nice. I will agree that combining those in a single window is a good idea, but only if none of the applications take Kontact with them when they crash.
Regardless, I just decided to make a clean break instead of trying to keep Akregator. The data for the feeds I follow was not “lost”, just the current count that showed read versus unread feeds. I already know what I have read, so that definitely is a small price to pay and not “Amazing.” at all.
Umm, you say you won’t use Akregator anymore because it’s part of Kontact and then you say you’ve been using Akregator and now you say it was actually nice to have it under Kontact as a plugin.. Clearly you are upset with kde dev team but that’s a bit contradicting in terms..
I too have some grievances with kde4 kmail/kontact (e.g. columns always a bit wider than what I’ve set them to be) and have tried both Thunderbird and Evolution every now and then but simply because with KMail I can read/delete/answer mail quickly with keyboard (e.g. select multiple messages and still see the body of last selected message) I’ve given up on both of them.
.mika
Mike A, thanks for reading and for your comment.
I am not certain what you are pointing out in your first sentence, so I will just let that stand. However, be assured I am not “upset” with the KDE development team. I am not “upset” at all as a matter of fact. I quit being “upset” about most things outside my control sometime in my mid-40′s.
What I have done is I have pragmatically moved my e-mail and contact list to Evolution since the Kontact/Kmail suite is “borked” as is in the Linux distribution I use. Then I wrote about my experience. My aside about Akregator is just an “Oh, by the way …” incidental comment.
Aaron Seigo,
I just recalled something else about Akregator. Today while I was reading my feeds in Liferea there was a power outage that took down my PC, and jogged my memory. Your comment about Liferea losing data just because I lost my feed count is unfortunate. You see, Akregator has lost my entire feeds.opml file several times when crashing or when power outages happened in the past. When Akregator would restart the feeds.opml file would be zero length. That, my friend, is losing data. Luckily I have backups of my /home partition and could restore the file. Today, Liferea recovered from the power outage just fine and all my feeds are still there. Plus my feed counts are intact.
Before you start stoning Liferea for simply losing the feed count, maybe you should take care of Akregator losing the entire feed file. That’s my suggestion anyway.
With reviews like this, my PIM is going to stay on Lenny and KDE 3.5 for a while. I periodically look at Debian testing but never seriously use it for my email.
This is why I run dovecot as an IMAP server. I am completely e-mail client agnostic. (And I even have squirrelmail set up so I can access my home e-mail from anywhere).
One of my main concerns with Kontact (old and new) is that the data file locations are hard wired into .kde (or .kde4). .kde should be used only for configuration, not data (IMO).
You should have migrated to Thunderbird. Very easy to migrate address book and mail from one PC to another. You can even migrate from Linux to Windows and back if you wish.
Jimmy, thanks for reading and for your suggestion.
I did consider Thunderbird. I looked to see if Thunderbird supports Maildir now, and as far as I could determine it does not. Unless Thunderbird gets Maildir support I will not use it. In my experience Maildir is a better solution than mbox or binary blob e-mail storage.