KMail from many platforms

[Derek Broughton]

Sylviane et Perry White wrote:

> So I installed dovecot under one of the user for Kubuntu.

???  Dovecot doesn't run per user.  It serves up messages for all users.  By
default it expects the mails to be in /home/$USER/Maildir

> It will be necessary to install it also on the Suse side. Some files and
> forders (e.g. Mail) should be placed where all the instances of dovecot
> can access them.

There are two possibilities, there.  IMAP supports "shared folders", where
multiple users should be able to access the folder.  Unfortunately, I've
never tried this :-)

The other alternative that I do use is to have a user defined on the system
that doesn't log in, and can't do anything but receive mail.  Then multiple
users access that account to check its mail.

Note, Dovecot should NOT be touching your ~/Mail directory - that's KMail's
local folders.

> (I feel I'm using a steam-roller to crack a peanut, but I am having fun)

Well, yeah :-)
 
> I decided what I needed was the "Virtual User Installation" because my
> wife's laptop could then be connected. Am I right?

I don't think so.  Where did this come from?  I can't seem to find any
debconf settings at all for dovecot.
> 
> I belive I need a mail transfer agent (installed under both KUbuntu and
> Suse), would you recommend Exim?

No.  If you're fetching your mail via fetchmail, you only need an MDA
(maildrop or procmail).  If you need a minimal MTA, I like masqmail.  If
you need a full-featured MTA, I think postfix is simpler to set up than
Exim (I haven't used either in a long time, though).  One thing to note
here is that (afaik) _all_ of the MTAs default to putting mail
in /var/mail/$USER/, where Dovecot/Courier expect it to be
in /home/$USER/Maildir/.  So either the MTA needs to be told to use the
IMAP server's locations, or vice versa, or one needs to be symlinked to the
other.  I _still_ after 10 years of doing this, haven't decided which way
is best.  Keeping the mail under the User's directory tree has the
advantage that any normal backup regime backs up the user's mail with
everything else

> For a mail client I haven't yet found anything relevant in the docs (too
> much of them and that subject is really new to me) but I hope Web
> Konqueror could be used just the way I read my fresh mail directly from my
> isp server when I'm not at home. Right?

Once the mail is on an IMAP server you use _any_ IMAP capable user agent.  I
use KMail.  You can use a web browser - but then you need to be running a
webmail server (like squirrelmail, or horde) to get the "ISP" look
(actually, konqueror _can_ handle imap: urls natively, but it would be
pretty awkward).

> P.S. Derek said:
>> Pointing ~/Mail to the same location should be practically harmlesss :-)
>> I'd still feel safer letting an IMAP server do that.
> I whish Derek or someone else could comment on that.

~/Mail is your KMail local folder, and it's just not intended to be shared. 
The IMAP folder
-- 
derek