[kdepim-users] rant

[Werner Joss]

Am Dienstag, 27. Januar 2015, 22:47:28 schrieb E. Hakan Duran:
> Hi all,
> 
> I guess I just wanted to rant a little bit about KDEPIM. I have been a loyal
> user of Kontact/Kmail/KDEPIM since 2003 or so. Back in the days of KDE 3,
> things would work flawlessly, then came KDE 4 and eventually the akonadi
> backbone for KDEPIM. I never gave up on the suite at its worst times mostly
> because of its flexibility for customization. Although I am ranting now, I
> don't see myself giving up on KDEPIM anytime soon. That being said, I am
> still disappointed with its current state. KDE 5 is around the corner now
> but I don't think KDEPIM 4.14.3 is anywhere close to Kontact/Kmail 3.x.x
> when KDE 4 was about to be implemented. I just cleaned a *75 GB *
> ~/.local/share/akonadi/file_db_data folder, and decided to disable the
> offline mode for IMAP accounts, since those would start filling this folder
> again incredibly quickly. Disabling offline mode is not ideal either, since
> you need to wait a few or more seconds to be able to see the contents of an
> email. I also encountered a few problems over the course of the years,
> including corruption of the mysqllite database and having to recreate all
> my accounts from scratch, etc. There are a few more criticisms, but this
> should suffice for this email.
> 
> I used to love and admire Kontact/Kmail, now it is a love and hate
> relationship, just like a seasoned marriage. Unfortunately I lack the
> expertise to be able to contribute to the improvement of this now very
> complicated piece of software. I just hope something miraculous happens soon
> and the usability of KDEPIM improves significantly; both on a day-to-day
> basis and in the long term (see the rant above about significant
> accumulation of junk data in folders in time). As a consumer, I am yet to
> be convinced that the switch to akonadi backbone was a good decision.
> 
> I am sorry to take your time, and thanks to those who read up to this point.

hello Hakan,
as you can see, I _did_ read this far :)
and I can confirm most what you write, even given the fact that I do currently 
not have issues with giant folder sizes.
nevertheless, although akonadi works since the 4.13.x series more or less ok,
it is still a rather fragile thing, if something goes wrong for some reason 
(mailserver glitches etc.) or one dares to do something unusual (e.g. move 
folders around, use symlinks, nfs etc...).
not to mention basic features (like distribution lists) which are frequently 
broken over and over again.
plus: troubleshooting for end users is still a nightmare, far not that easy as 
just restoring a data or config file from backup, as it was before akonadi.
but I think the developers are finally aware of that, there seem to be efforts 
to rewrite the whole thing, see
http://aseigo.blogspot.com/2014/12/first-kontact-5-meeting-on-irc.html
in addition, maybe trojita is getting more mature, it just lacks vital 
features like multiple identities/accounts ATM, but is very fast and clean 
otherwise.
Werner
p.s.: currently I'm still using kontact as my primary pim-suite, for reasons 
you also mentioned.
but, when friends ask me to help with an open source email/pim suite, I do not 
dare to recommend kdepim to them, but thunderbird/sunbird instead.





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