Looking for input from Kontact users

[Alvin]

On 6/02/2012 10:56, ITSEF Admin wrote:
> On Thursday 15 December 2011 11:38:15 Alvin wrote:
>> On Thursday 08 December 2011 15:58:37 ITSEF Admin wrote:
>>> [...]
>>> - What version of Kontact are you using (e35, "the one that came with the
>>> distribution", ...)?
>>
>> Kontact 4.7.4 (The one that comes with Kubuntu 11.10 + PPA)
> 
> Right, that's the one we're running a one-user pilot with right now.

In the meantime, Kubuntu released KDE 4.8 in the backports repository.

>>> - On which platform and with how many users?
>>
>> Only myself. For testing. Other users in the company are using our older
>> mail server with Kontact, Thunderbird or Outlook. Only for mail. Kontact
>> users have the version that came with Kubuntu 10.04, but are requesting a
>> change to Thunderbird due to stability issues.
> 
> That is consistent with what we saw - Kontact is far from being stable... :-(

Maybe it's too soon to say, but on first sight, KDE 4.8 is a step in the
right direction. Others on the kubuntu-users mailing agree.

>>> - What are your experiences with Kontact with regard to
>>>   [...]

I had to reconfigure Kontact. I'm now using it with 1 small account on
Kolab. Akonadi runs on a local PostgreSQL. At first sight, things look
good. Only email use so far, but no crashes yet!

>> - I no longer use the "Find Messages". The load on the system is just too
>> high.

This is working fine now, but I didn't try Kontact with a mailbox larger
than 100MB yet.

> That has been the case with Kontact as long as we've been using it - one of 
> the most frequent complaints of our users.
> 
> [... rest of list with flakey behaviour skipped ...]
> 
>> So, not very 'production ready'. It's a shame. KMail has every function I
>> have come to expect from a mail client. I loved KMail in KDE3 and I find
>> Akonadi a fantastic idea. If only it weren's so buggy. Increase the
>> performance, take out the bugs and you have a gem.
> 
> Hmpf, that all sounds not very confidence inspiring... Akonadi seems to be the 
> one element to start with that is apparently far from production ready - 
> [...]

Regarding the NFS issues: we're using NFS mounted /home on Kubuntu 10.04
and it hasn't been a problem as long as we use NFSv4. On the other hand,
most of those users switched to Thunderbird, so I might not know the
exact issues.

For those who believe Akonadi/Nepomuk/... is production ready, please
read the "Nepomuk performance" thread on this week's kubuntu-users
mailinglist.
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/kubuntu-users/2012-February/

> [...] Oracle has moved everything around - should be this: 
> http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E19957-01/mysql-refman-6.0/server-administration.html]

I know. Don't get me started on that ;-)

> [...] 
> More than enough to cast doubt on whether newer Kontact versions using Akonadi 
> are a good idea when used in a multi-user, NFS-based environment. At the very 
> least, we'd probably have to investigate whether it is possible to use a 
> central MySQL server for Akonadi - the idea of every user having to run 
> his/her own MySQL-server instance seems somewhat crazy to me...
> Nonetheless, if anybody out there has some additional insight, I'd be much 
> obliged.

Similar opinions can be found. It's a common KDE issue. Popular KDE
software needing a database:
- Akonadi
- Nepumuk
- Strigi
- Amarok
- Digikam

On my personal workstation I try to use PostgreSQL. Ubuntu will probably
stop supporting MySQL anyway and move to MariaDB.

I believe Kolabsys is working on something called "server-side Akonadi".
That would be a solution for us too. Currently, we're using XDMCP, so
everyone is working on the same server. Each his own database on that
same NFS share is not an ideal situation.

> P.S. (as it is rather OT on this list):
>> We're in the process of evaluating a new mail server for the company. I use
>> Kolab personally, but for the company, Kolab was ruled out due to
>> difficulty of installation/upgrade and missing documentation. Also, most
>> people are using a recent version of Thunderbird now.
> 
> Maybe you'd like to share (off-list) what you're looking at right now?

It's on topic now, because eventually we chose Kolab. There aren't a lot
of professional comparisons between groupware servers to be found, so I
tried several.

Why Kolab?
- We were on a deadline and I had to something. Kolab always looked
friendly. I don't like 'open core' solutions. Also, I'm still hoping to
reintroduce Kontact in production.
- At least it can be installed. I'm no fan of OpenPKG, but the Readme is
complete. When looking for alternatives, I have come to the conclusion
that Kolab isn't the only groupware solution that is difficult to
install. For example, even with a little bit of aid from Atmail, we
didn't manage to install their product on Debian.
- For now, we'll use the community version, but it's good to know there
is commercial support from Kolabsys. I have always had the impression
(from this list and IRC) that their support is very capable, albeit a
bit expensive for small companies like ours. The minimum contract is fit
for 100 users. We have less than 20.
- Debian is supported (as long as you shutdown Kolab manually before
rebooting).

The lack of documentation is still an issue. For example, I still
haven't found out how to send mail to shared folders.

Currently, nobody is using anything more than IMAP, the shared address
book and sieve. Some people are trying the web client. So far, I haven't
received much complaints, so it's a success and changes are good that
we'll keep using Kolab.