kmail expiry question

Fri Nov 4 03:09:16 GMT 2011

gene heskett posted on Thu, 03 Nov 2011 21:37:56 -0400 as excerpted:

> KMail is 1.13.7.  kdepim seems not to even be installed.  Not in $PATH
> anyway.  The package manager says it is installed, version 4.4.11.1

FWIW, "KDE as we know it" ships in a series of huge monolithic tarballs, 
each of which contain many sub-projects.  kdepim contains kmail, 
akregator, knode, kopete, korganizer, kaddressbook, and other assorted 
executables, plus libraries and some data.  Some distros have a single 
package for the whole tarball, others have individual packages for each 
component within the tarball (with some variability as to how the tarball 
is split into individual packages/components), often with a meta-package 
that will install all of the individual packages as dependencies.

So there's kdegames, kdepim, kdegraphics, kdelibs, kde-workspace,
kde-runtime, etc.  (The latter two and a third were originally kdebase, 
but it got split in three for kde 4.6 or 4.7, IIRC, so there's now three 
smaller tarballs instead of one larger kdebase.)

kmail is one component in the kdepim tarball.

So normally, all of the kde core tarballs update together and have the 
same version, so kde 4.7.3 just came out, with for example 
thekdegames-4.7.3 tarball.

But kdepim got stuck at 4.4.x for awhile, as the kdepim developers worked 
on trying to make the upgrade to akonadified kmail as smooth and painless 
as possible.  Thus, while the rest of kde upgraded thru 4.5 and then 4.6, 
kdepim (and thus the kmail component within it, along with its other 
components) had only the minimal updates necessary to keep them working 
with the newer kdelibs, etc.  Those updates were numbered 4.4.7+, up to 
4.4.11 or so (I don't know how high it eventually went).  This kdepim 
4.4.x series still contained the pre-akonadi-kmail 1.x.

Then along about kde 4.6.2, a kdepim 4.6.0 was finally released with 
kmail2, but it was only for early adopters.  Later, around kde 4.6.4 or 
4.6.5, a kdepim 4.6.1 was released.  It was a slight update but still for 
early adopters only.

With 4.7, kdepim got back in sync with the rest of kde, so the kdepim 
version again matches that of the rest of kde.  However, it's still a bit 
rough around the edges so a few distros are still shipping the last kdepim 
4.4 with the still un-akonadified kmail1, with a few patches.

But as kdepim 4.7 matures, the kdepim devs have dropped support for the 
old kdepim 4.4 series with its un-akonadified kmail1, and the first 
regressions have appeared for those still using it as the rest of kde 
continues to advance.  With kde 4.8, the gap will probably be wide enough 
that few if any distros will continue to ship the old kdepim 4.4 with it, 
instead shipping the new version-synced kdepim.

Thus, for kde 4.4, kdepim was version-synced with the rest of kde.  For 
kde 4.5, kdepim remained 4.4.x.  kde 4.6 was early transitional, with 
only a few distros shipping kdepim 4.6, while most stuck with the still 
supported kdepim 4.4.  kde 4.7 is late transitional, with more distros 
shipping kdepim 4.7 but a few sticking with the older 4.4.  By kde 4.8, 
nearly all distros will be shipping the again synced kdepim 4.8 as well.

kmail relates to all of this as a part of kdepim, with kdepim 4.4 still 
having the pre-akonadified kmail1, while kdepim 4.6+ contains the newly 
akonadified kmail2.

So for any problem related to kmail (or any other kdepim component, for 
that matter), with kde 4.4 and earlier, simply stating the kde version is 
normally enough as kdepim was version synced with it.  Similarly with the 
forthcoming kde 4.8, simply stating the kde version should be enough as 
kdepim and thus kmail should be synced with it.  For kde 4.5, it's enough 
to simply remember than kdepim and kmail were still at the 4.4 and kmail1 
versions.  kde 4.6 and 4.7 are problems, however, as their transitional, 
and kmail/kdepim may be either the older kdepim 4.4 or the newer 4.6/4.7 
versions, depending on the distro and/or repo used.

Since the kde version you reported, 4.6.x, was within that transitional 
zone, more information was needed to nail down the kmail actually being 
used.  Within a distro-specific context, what they actually shipped would 
be known, but as this is an upstream kde list, it'd be only by chance 
that someone would be familiar enough with that distro to know what they 
shipped, and thus know the kdepim and by extension kmail version you're 
using.

Clear as mud?  =:^)

So yeah, you won't have a kdepim in your $PATH, as it's the name of the 
big multi-component sources tarball.  But you might have (and as it 
happens did have) a package installed by that name, with an associated 
version string, which you now reported, so all the necessary version info 
is now there, for anyone with kmail still installed to compare against 
and help you with.

But as I said, that's not me, as I switched to claws-mail, and am MUCH 
happier with it than I've been with kmail since kde 4.4, when kaddressbook 
first went akonadified, thus starting the slide that eventually lead to 
my switching to claws-mail in time to not have to install kmail for kde 
4.7.0. Soon after, I killed akregator as well, thus eliminating my 
dependency on anything kdepim related and allowing me to completely 
eliminate it, and with it, nearly all kde related semantic-desktop bits, 
from my system.  As I've stated before, the performance impact was 
dramatic, and I'm **MUCH** happier with kde4 now that I don't have that 
semantic desktop junk dragging things down than I EVER was before! =:^)

YMMV, of course, but that's my experience, and with it, I just wish 
others could experience how much better kde4 runs without all that 
semantic desktop junk dragging it down too.  IMO that'd dramatically 
improve kde4's image, especially since the worst of the plasma issues 
were worked out around kde 4.5 or so and it has improved even more since.

But they say 4.7.3 includes some dramatic semantic desktop performance 
improvements, so the performance impact of semantic-desktop might not be 
as bad with it.  But I'm not about to reinstall all that semantic-desktop 
junk to find out, that's for sure!

-- 
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

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