Thunderbird, Linux & MS Exchange

[Phil.]

I'm toying with the idea of sticking linux on my computer at work, the only would be problem is making sure everything works properly with the exchange server.

Anyone with any experience of using thunderbird with exchange, is it reliable, task list calender and all the other stuff i never use work ok?

[UnknownStuntm...]

I don't have exchange here to test, but if you can do IMAP from exchange it will work ok. We use Zimbra and I connect to that with IMAP and it's great.

If you publish the calendar with iCal it works, but task lists you may come unstuck on. I don't have any experience whatsoever...

Only downsides are that sometimes the folders show messages unread but they're not, and it can take a short while to delete stuff.

Oh, and when you forward a message it posts at the top no matter what you select.

If it's a work PC though, I would exercise caution. You just KNOW that you'll be asked to do something in a hurry and you'll not know how to do it in Linux, and have to faff about before doing a 2 minute job. I took my time learning with a dual boot and only fully switched after I'd not needed windoze for 6 months.

[SonicTheHedge...]

Using IMAP accounts with Exchange I found to be a bit sketchy - there'd occasionally be phantom emails and error messages (for appointments, etc) cluttering up the box and performance wasn't too hot on big mailboxes. iCal worked, but I think it was only truly competent read-only.

In the end, we wound up spinning up an IMAP proxy on a vserver for people's remote-access needs (which also got Exchange away from our front-line), and those who need Exchange integration (including me) are running their Linux flavour with a Virtualbox Windows XP/Outlook instance.

Switch off "Cached Exchange mode", and it all works pretty well in a 512M, 2G Virtualbox instance, with SMB sharing to get files out etc.

I seem to remember a middleware widget called, I think, "Brutus" that I was meaning to check, which supposedly did some kind of OSS mailclient integration, but I've never got sufficient Round Tuits to sort it out.
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[The Artist]

Hmm,

Had problems with exchange on Linux. If you have time and knowledge then go for it but if not, stay with windows.

Exchange is obviously designed to work with windows but can be tweaked as said above.

[Phil.]

Thanks for all the advise, i will save myself the trouble and stick with xp

[neil.]

The Evolution email client works quite nicely with Exchange servers. I connect to the Exchange server at work from home via Outlook Web Access with it. It also works internally/natively and pretty much supports everything like the Global Address List and opening other user's folders etc. Great if you use the Gnome desktop environment in Linux. If you use Ubuntu it's there by default. https://projects.gnome.org/evolution/

Edit: You could also access your Exchange stuff via a web browser and Outlook Web Access. Just point the browser at your server. Limited but it works.
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