[kde-linux] Problem with kmail at startup

[Duncan]

tonyb posted on Thu, 11 Feb 2010 10:57:58 +0000 as excerpted:

> On Tuesday 09 Feb 2010 11:00:25 Duncan <1i5t5.duncan at cox.net> wrote:
> 
> Thanks for the comprehensive reply, Duncan.
> 
>> Just so you know, kde 4.3.1 is a bit old.  There were 4.3.2 thru 4.3.5
>> updates (the last of which just came out a week or so ago), and 4.4.0
>> is due out today (Feb. 9th).
> 
> I know, but it's just that I'm working on something at the moment that I
> don't want to risk mucking up (and there's usually something that works
> differently whenever I upgrade!).

Something that works differently... indeed!  But I'm on 4.4 now, and I 
like everything I've seen so far!  (Well, one exception, the spacing 
between plasmoids in panels seems a bit bigger, or maybe it's just certain 
plasmoids, but regardless, I had to modify things a bit to get everything 
to fit again!  And there's an issue with soprano-2.4.0 as discussed in a 
thread on the kde-general list (title says krunner, but it's traced to 
soprano), but 2.3.73 seems to be working fine and that's what I have 
installed, so I'm happy!)

Since this is a kmail thread, it's worth noting that kde 4.4 does require 
akonadi for kaddressbook, and 4.5 will require it for kmail itself.  
That's a change you should be aware of.  I was a bit worried about that 
since I wasn't using akonadi/nepomuk/semantic-desktop at all, thru 4.3 
(akonadi-server was required but on Gentoo we were able to disable all its 
databases, so it was basically just a stub to resolve compile-time deps, 
no runtime utility at all).  Until iced-tea became available for Gentoo, I 
had no Java installed, so no Sesame2, and whatever the other one was, was 
dead-slow, but virtuoso seems to be quite reasonable, and 4.4 now defaults 
to it, so akonadi/nepomuk/semantic-desktop are fine, now, and having 
kaddressbook require them in 4.4 and kmail in 4.5 isn't such a big deal, 
now, provided they don't screw up kmail in the process.  Here's hoping! 
=:^)

>> Alternatively, try a script like this:
>> 
>> kmail &	# & starts the command in the background
>> sleep 5	# wait 5 seconds to give it time to get going
>> disown -a	# disown all, SIGHUP should no longer kill it
>> exit 0	# this one's optional, you can simply end the script
> 
> This worked, thanks. The disown comand is a new one to me.

=:^)

FWIW, there's the nohup variant as well, as in nohup kmail, see the nohup 
manpage for more, but that writes output to a file (nohup.out) by default, 
which we have reason to want, and the background/sleep/disown thing works, 
so...

> As a usage question, I receive posts from this list in digest mode. Does
> kmail provide a way that I can reply to a specific post within the
> digest while retaining the thread (which I suspect hasn't happened here,
> coz I just edited the digest message)?

You're right about the threading...  I've wondered if there was a way to 
properly handle that, myself.

But FWIW, I do all my lists as newsgroups thru gmane.org's list2news 
gateway, and use a news client to read and reply, thus keeping them out of 
my mailbox entirely.  Most lists have a vacation mode that doesn't send 
messages, but will let you reply.  That's how gmane replies work -- 
they're forwarded to the list as you, so if the list only takes subscriber 
mail, you have to be subscribed to post, and then turn on vacation mode or 
whatever so you don't get the messages since you read them thru gmane.  
Only if I can't figure out how to do vacation mode on a particular list do 
I choose digest mode, and then I normally use kmail filters to trash the 
digests.

If you prefer newsgroups to mail, gmane could be right up your alley.  
FWIW, they also have a web interface if you prefer that, but newsgroups is 
my preference, by far, so that's what I use gmane for and why I'm glad 
they are there! =:^)

I wonder how hard it'd be to add the threading digest sub-message reply 
feature to kmail tho.  It's likely not entirely trivial.  But if they did, 
they'd be one of the few clients that has the feature, which would be a 
big plus in the crowded mail client field.

Maybe post the idea to the brainstorm site and see what others think about 
it?  Assuming no one else has beaten you to it, couldn't hurt! =:^)  

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman