[TriLUG] Email questions

[Jon Carnes]

> My question is 2 fold:
> I've been reading the discussions and have come to the conclusion I'm
going
> to try Balsa, Evolution, mutt, and so forth. The Question: Can any of
these
> be setup to automatically check the server for new mail every --seconds or
> do I need sendmail?

They can all be setup to access the server every few minutes.

If you like outlook express, you'll really love Kmail.  You would need to
set your mail on the Exchange server to put everything in an imap folder for
you and then setup Kmail to do IMAP.  The latest version is very nice.
>
> Question 2:
> Any suggestions on how to survive as a Linux person in a MS shop, without
> having to use VMware/Win4Lin to run Outlook?

Some distributions of Linux are more accepting of the MS environment.
Mandrake is designed to be run on the desktop in an MS-centric world. The
latest release even comes with a Network Neighborhood browser (well its not
called that, but essentially that is what it is).  Beyond that, there is a
distro called Redmond Linux (I think that's right), which is vying for the
desktop.

In general any distro will work well. The apps are what most folks refer to
when they think of MS compatibility.  Use Abiword for your doc's and
gnumeric for spreadsheets and folks will never know that you aren't plugged
into MS-Office.

Jon Carnes