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diff --git a/20211103-lightweight-mail-client.md b/20211103-lightweight-mail-client.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..47a54b8 --- /dev/null +++ b/20211103-lightweight-mail-client.md @@ -0,0 +1,17 @@ +# On the status of lightweight GUI mail clients + +November 3rd, 2021 + +I'll give you a bit of context first. Lately I've become frustrated with Xubuntu on my laptop. Long story short, having to update every 6 month and the general direction the OS is taking bothered me (flatpack by default... wait what?). Add to that the fact that every update broke something, so in the end I just reinstalled from scratch every 6 month. + +Considering this, a few weeks ago I decided to ditch Ubuntu and go back to Debian. I say "back to Debian" because I actually used it as my main laptop OS a few years back. Although at the time I was using the stable flavor, this time I decided to install the testing flavor to avoid those dreaded updates. As usual I wanted to keep things small and simple, so I went with LXQt as my desktop environment. The project's [about page](https://lxqt-project.org/about/) states: + +> It will not hang or slow down your system + +I can confirm it is very light. I don't know if it's Debian or LXQt making magic, or maybe both, but programs open up _instantly_, even on my 7 year old laptop. It's a refreshing experience. + +By default, the mail client bundled with LXQt, at least on Debian, is Mozilla Thunderbird. It's a great client, but not exactly light and it also does not integrate well with my Qt theme. I could install KMail, but it will likely pull half of KDE along. So I went online in search of a light Qt-based mail client. I found only one, [Trojita](http://trojita.flaska.net/). Sadly, there's no package for it in Debian. Looking at the project's repository and bug tracker, it seems that development has been slow as of late. According to a [bug report](https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=365299), it's been recently dropped from Gentoo because it uses an outdated web rendering component (I'll save my opinion on HTML emails for another post). + +Even when considering GTK mail clients, there's only a handful of options to choose from. If you push aside those which are still based on GTK2, there is only one remaining: [Geary](https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Geary). I've used it in the past, it's quite light and gets to the point, but it won't do better than Thunderbird in my Qt-based environment. + +In the end I'm a bit short on options. It is sad that you can't easily install a Qt lightweight GUI mail client nowadays. Of course I could contribute to one of the previously mentioned projects and update it. Or I may explore CLI-based solutions. Or continue to use the webmail that comes with my provider. I haven't decided yet. diff --git a/template/index.html b/template/index.html index af7de82..931342f 100644 --- a/template/index.html +++ b/template/index.html @@ -2,6 +2,7 @@ <p>Hello and welcome, my name is Vincent and you've landed on the small space where I ramble mainly about IT and occasionally other topics. You can check my articles below, my <a href="//git.vdouillet.fr" title="git.vdouillet.fr">git repos</a> or the <a href="/about.html" title="about">about</a> page.</p> </header> <ul style="list-style-type:none;padding-left:0"> + <li><a href="/lightweight-mail-client.html" title="On the status of lightweight GUI mail clients">11-03-2021 On the status of lightweight GUI mail clients</a></li> <li><a href="/browsing-gems.html" title="Browsing gems">10-11-2021 Browsing gems</a></li> <li><a href="/raspberry-pi-white-noise-machine.html" title="Raspberry Pi white noise machine">09-29-2021 Raspberry Pi white noise machine</a></li> <li><a href="/openbsd-simple-git-server.html" title="Simple git server on OpenBSD">09-11-2021 Simple git server on OpenBSD</a></li> |