Ubuntu and Evolution 2.6.1 / MS Exchange 2003

One of my benchmarks for any Linux Distros suitability as a full time desktop is how well it works in an MS Windows infrastructure world. Recently I have spent some time pondering user interfaces and how well either KDE or Gnome might be accepted. How easy they are to use. Maybe even what drives usage other than being purely 'easy'. At the end of the day, a pretty face and easy to find and run things, or even easy to interact with other Linux computers or Apple computers doesn't really matter if you work in a place where there is MS Windows based infrastructure, and you have to deal with that.

I am going to go out on a fairly thick and well supported limb here and assert that if there is MS Windows based infrastructure in your place, then the folks that use it probably do not spend a great deal of time worrying about whether or not what they create is interoperative outside of the MS Windows environment. The typical attitude is that they have standardized. There is not normally a high level of cognizance about the difference between standardizing on something like MS Office (which is really a package, not a 'standard' per se) and a standard, such as a document format standard, like Oasis, which many office packages can read and write to, including (sooner or later) MS Office, OpenOffice, Word Perfect, Google Writely, Kwrite, and probably others. I have not looked at Abiword lately, but I bet they have it.

I suppose you could assert that standardizing on a package implies the document formats one has chosen as a standard, and that I am just being pedantic here. Maybe. Loose by my lights, but maybe.

If someone told me that they have standardized on .doc as a document format, that would be closer, although to produce a document about what that standard actually is would more than likely require spending some time in the OpenOffice developers forum and OpenOffice source code. Without access to internal documents, that is probably the best place to get information about how the .doc format works.

Ditto SMB/CIFS. These are file sharing protocols, but more than likely the best place to get information about how they work is over at the SaMBa project. But I digress...

MS Exchange is of course MS Infrastructure. It can speak more than one protocol, including openly documented protocols, and how it works in your place is highly variable: I have been corresponding recently with someone who works in an MS Exchange environment where they have all the open protocols inexplicably turned off. No POP or IMAP. Just the externally (to MS) undocumented MAPI / RPC That MS Outlook uses. And Webmail.

Therein lies the opening. Webmail is implemented using CalDAV and WebDAV, and the Gnome projects Evolution mail client can speak them. Well: some versions. If you read back over the last year, or “Adventures” I have posted a great deal here about what has worked and what has not worked in my specific setup here. Most recently I have discovered that FC5 and 2.6.3 work well, and when using the Gnome interface rather than the KDE interface it works even better.

As I was looking at Kubuntu and Ubuntu and the recent 'news' that they were the “most popular Linux desktop” I could not help but wonder how well they would work...well... at work.

I also had some questions about the way I personally had installed Ubuntu 6.06 last time. I was curious about trying it again and doing a few things differently. I had the Ubuntu 6.06 running in LiveCD form under Parallels on my Mac. I added a virtual hard drive, and booted the LiveCD Ubuntu, and then clicked the 'install' icon. 6 panels, and literally five minutes later I had Ubuntu installed to 'disk'.

I watched it install, and noticed it contacted the network, and got some things ready so that at the end of the install an icon flashed saying updates were ready to install. This was different from the last time, and one of the things I was curious about: Last time I did not have a network connected when I installed. I clicked that, and it launched the software update manager, and downloaded about 10 packages. I then went into add/remove off the applications menu, and loaded up various other packages. Things like Java and Flash.

I rebooted the VM, and then took the Mac to work. I configured Evolution the same way I do for FC5 (Configure, exit, restart, tweak a few things in preferences, exit, go in again), and lookie there: It works! Calendaring, Tasks, Contacts, everthing!. Cool!

It is also screaming fast as a guest of Parallels on the Mac. I may have to go home and throw rocks that the M300's.

OK: Maybe Ubuntu or Kunbuntu really is the most popular desktop. Or will be. Fedora and OpenSUSE clearly have some competition for the desktop.