KMail from many platforms

[Derek Broughton]

Sylviane et Perry White wrote:

> On Monday 17 December 2007 15:59, Derek Broughton wrote:
>> 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
> I Knew that. I verified I could access dovecot from the other user.
> The point is that if last mail download was on Ubuntu's side and the next
> time I boot under Suse, I won't be able to run Ubuntu's dovecot from the
> Suse side (of the same machine)...Or is there a way?

Sure.  Using this system, it's probably best to have all mail delivered
to /var/mail/$USER/ (as I said, default of most if not all MTAs), and have
the same /var/mail/ mounted on both the Ubuntu & Suse.  Then you either
modify the dovecot config file to expect to find the Inbox there, or you
just symlink everybody's ~/Maildir to /var/mail/$USER.

> Actually there are only two users: me and my wife on Suse (boots by
> default and without password). I intend to make the passwordless
> autobooting system as the second (unprivileged) user for my wife.
> We have always shared our mailbox and there is no problem of
> conficientiallity so she can read all the mail. I would like to make sure
> she can't goof and erase a mail item or a whole directory.

Hmmm.  That can be done, but I leave it as an exercise for you (ie, I don't
know how :-) ).

>> Once the mail is on an IMAP server you use _any_ IMAP capable user agent.
>> I use KMail.
> I have always used KMail to retrive my mail on *my* computer.
> When I go on hollydays I unsubscribe from lists and read my personal mail
> with internet explorer (what is available).
> The problem is that, as the same user on Suse and Ubu, there is no point
> in reading the same "new" mail, sorting, deleting them, marking as
> important, etc, on both sides.

That shouldn't be a problem.  Using IMAP all the statuses are stored in the
IMAP server's data structures.  So a read message should show as "read"
wherever you read it from.

> *What I expected:*
> Some way to sync my maildirs between Suse, Ubu1 and Ubu2 (with dumbproof
> restrictions in Ubu2).

If both dovecots are using the same data, that's inherent.

> That dovecot would always get fresh mail when it is there when I connect.

That's up to fetchmail...

> If I read mail from any side it would appear as read from the other side
> too, if is sorted or deleted...

inherent in the IMAP server.

> I absolutely don't want to download into local Kmail folders.

That only happens if you configure it for "Disconnected IMAP".  Definitely
not necessary.

> At the end I'm not sure dovecot will do what I want.

I'm sure it will

> dovecot, i.e. how I can get Konq or KMaill to get its input from it.

In KMail, you configure a new "Account".  It will likely be much the same
whatever client you use.

"Konq" does NOT do anything of the sort - as I said, you need to install
squirrelmail, or something similar, if you want webmail.
-- 
derek