Outlook on Linux
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| Sander_Marechal Feb 17, 2009 10:44 PM EDT |
I think the author didn't research properly. There are numerous ways to use Outlook on Linux or escape it alltogether. - Outlook 2003 runs on Wine. Other versions run on Crossover Office. - Outlook on a virtual machine such as VirtualBox - Exchange supports IMAP so you can use *any* mail client to access your mail (caledar events is a different story) - Evolution supports Exchange through webexchange - Various clients such as Evolution (With OpenChange plugin) and Thunderbird support MAPI, Exchange's native protocol (quality varies though). - Exchange has a POP3 interface, if all else fails I have worked for quite a few companies heavily vested in Exchange and never had a problem running Linux. If you care about e-mail only then it's downright easy. Calendaring (especially shared calendars) is more tricky but not impossible. Also, none of the above is any reason to switch to the Cloud. A company would be downright stupid to trust their private communication to the Cloud. |
| rijelkentaurus Feb 18, 2009 5:44 AM EDT |
Don't forget Outlook Web Access, works fine in Firefox or whatever. |
| Sander_Marechal Feb 18, 2009 6:38 AM EDT |
I know, but the author of the article tried that and had some trouble with attachments, so I left it out. |
| tuxchick Feb 18, 2009 6:50 AM EDT |
OWA is poo. Microsoft can't code its way out of a wet disintegrating paper bag. |
| rijelkentaurus Feb 18, 2009 7:15 AM EDT |
I've never had problems with attachments, so I can't speak to those issues. Yes, it's poo. |
| ColonelPanik Feb 18, 2009 8:47 AM EDT |
Outlook? Not no but hell no! That is the reason I use Linux, no outl00k. Stupid stupid stupid idea. |
| caitlyn Feb 18, 2009 11:58 AM EDT |
ColonelPanik: If your employer or a customer forces you to use Exchange/Outlook what are you going to do? Quit? In this economy? Would you turn down a job because the company uses Exchange or Outlook? tuxchick: I've had to use OWA on and off for years in order to access Exchange servers with Linux. It's better than actually having to install Windows or WINE or CrossOver Office. I know you hate Microsoft but let's be fair here. Is it a great mail client? No. But... For the most part it just plain works. |
| tracyanne Feb 18, 2009 12:24 PM EDT |
Yes it does work, like a lot of Microsoft products, it good enough. |
| tuxchick Feb 18, 2009 12:25 PM EDT |
Caitlyn, you do not know that I hate Microsoft. Because I do not. Facing facts and reporting them is not hate. I scorn and mock them, which is like shooting fish in a barrel, so perhaps I am unsporting. OWA is poo and that is a fact. It does not just plain work any more than the standalone Outlook client does. It's slow and unreliable, and for full functionality it requires Internet Explorer. It inherits all the defects of the standalone Outlook client: friendly to malware, unstable non-standard data store, and so on. You get a limited bit of functionality in other platforms on other browsers. Any number of FOSS-based Webmail/groupware apps run rings around it in performance and security. Its only purpose, like every other piece in the giant, unwieldy, inferior Microsoft software stack is lockin. Now that Microsoft has been forced by the EU to open up and document their server protocols, there are fewer reasons than ever to stick with junk like Exchange/Outlook. Postpath had already reverse-engineered the Exchange protocols a couple years ago, and now they are available to anyone who can afford the license fee. The only technical hurdle to migrating away from Exchange used to be the difficulty of migrating its fragile, non-standards-compliant, closed proprietary data store. (Who owns your data again?) Now that hurdle is gone. Dragging in the old 'what if your job requires' strawman doesn't even make sense. The author of the article didn't make more than a token effort to research any alternatives, and quickly detoured into a commercial for Zoho. I've been administering mixed networks for years, and I have done a good number of migrations away from MS-ware, and I know what I'm talking about. Unlike the author of this article. It is way past time for reporters and other people to stop making excuses for Microsoft. |
| ColonelPanik Feb 18, 2009 1:24 PM EDT |
The Colonel does not do any tech work for money!
Not qualified. The fact I am poor is because I quit
jobs for the slightest reason. m$ would not be a
slight reason. Those of you that have to service m$ stuff for your work...I hope things go well. Someday you can have a job that is pure Linux. For all the pain, tears, blood and damn near losing a wife over Linux, I have still not had as much trouble as I had with m$. |
| caitlyn Feb 18, 2009 3:11 PM EDT |
tuxchick: OK, if you say it isn't hatred I'll accept that. Let's call it a very strong anti-Microsoft bias then. I do hate Microsoft's business practices and I'm still not nearly as anti-MS as you are. The requirements an employer makes are anything but a strawman argument. For those of us who have to live with the whims of employers and/or major customers to stay afloat financially this is a very real issue. Is the article little more than a commercial? Yep. Is it a good article? Nope. I had hoped and thought that the LXer discussion goes beyond the content of the article. Making excuses for Microsoft? I'm not doing that. I am, however, dealing with reality in the business community where I live. |
| gus3 Feb 18, 2009 4:24 PM EDT |
"Employers' requirements" are just handy excuses for laziness or maintaining the status quo. Every Windows "convenience" a company may enumerate is offset by one or more costs: anti-virus, administration, updates, risks, security holes, and hoping and praying that Microsoft will get off their collective duff and provide fixes for your systems' latest exploits before someone outside (or even inside) finds them. |
| tracyanne Feb 18, 2009 9:45 PM EDT |
Sorry a bit OT: I've got a Quad core Dell, my new computer at work, and just looking at the CPU usage, one CPU core seems to be doing all the work, and is sitting a a pretty constant 90% utilisation, the other cores only occassionaly bestir themselves. When I compare that with my Linux laptop at home ( a dual core machine) both cores seems to be sharing the load pretty much equally, and most of the time rarely go above about 30 % even under heavy load. The threading model on Windows seems broken to me, but I could be wrong. |
| tracyanne Feb 18, 2009 9:48 PM EDT |
It's like talking to sheep. You show Windows zealots that Microsoft appear to be taking even further control of their computers, with Windows 7, and they just shrug. |
| jdixon Feb 18, 2009 10:42 PM EDT |
> Every Windows "convenience" a company may enumerate is offset by one or more costs:,,, Agreed, but unless you're in a position to make or at least influence the decision making, you have no say or choice in the matter. :( The company I work for will be switching to Outlook/Exchange from Lotus Notes later this year. I always knew it was only a matter of time till they did so, as the management has always had a strong Microsoft bias. Oh well, more work for us lowly IT techs when the next virus outbreak hits. :) |
| caitlyn Feb 18, 2009 11:00 PM EDT |
jdixon: Unless, of course, they blame you for not preventing the virus outbreak and fire you. I did some security work for a telecom company a little while back. They fired their IT staff in a given office because of a security breach. I was someone brought in to prevent it from ever happening again. I read what the previous staff had written. They had warned management time and time again and had given them clear remedies for the horrific security practices that existed. It wasn't their fault at all. Management fired the techs for something they had tried to prevent. They were, in fact, fired for management's failings. Oh, and while I did improve some things I never did finish. Management didn't like the inconveniences real security would cause (like having to change passwords on a regular basis) so they let me go too. I took their money and figured they would never learn. At least I did get paid. gus3: What jdixon said. If you aren't management you may not have a say. I've been IT management (six years as an IT Director) and I didn't much like it. |
| gus3 Feb 19, 2009 12:15 AM EDT |
@caitlyn: Fair enough; on re-reading what I wrote, I don't think it's that much distance from what I said to what jdixon said. As far as blaming the IT crew for management's intransigence, did you say as much to the managers (or their bosses, or the stockholders)? I'm reminded of a story, maybe an urban legend, about W. Edwards Deming. He was invited to speak at some company about quality and process management. At the event, the first thing he did was ask how many present were senior managers or executives. Nobody raised a hand. In response, he told them that nothing would change if the people in charge don't care enough to change it. He declared the engagement a waste of his time, and then he walked out. And he still charged the full speaking fee. So it is with the decision-makers who insist on using that steaming pile of horse-hockey called "Windows". |
| Sander_Marechal Feb 19, 2009 3:06 AM EDT |
@caitlyn: I would have walked away from that job on the spot. I'm fed up with dealing with dumb managers who shouldn't even be allowed to write the word IT, let alone deal with it. If a job has no management buy-in then I'm walking out. If you freelance and you're smart then you'll put a term or two in your contract that allows you to do that. It's one of the things I like best about doing FOSS work full-time now: No more dumb managers to fight. |
| ColonelPanik Feb 19, 2009 12:29 PM EDT |
Sander, and everyone else: That should be someones PhD paper.
The social side of tech work. You can massage the bits and bytes
until they perform all kinds of magic. But those bosses? Can you
make them jump through your hoops? I know money is important (but not so much as you think) and today jobs are iffy at best. But Sander said it well, you have to know when to walk away and when to run. Don't be fools but listen to your heart. |
| gus3 Feb 19, 2009 2:48 PM EDT |
Quoting:you have to know when to walk away and when to run.And when to milk them for every penny you can. |
| caitlyn Feb 19, 2009 4:25 PM EDT |
@Sander & gus3: I wasn't given access to the old docs right away. I learned what the previous team wrote very close to the end of my time there anyway. I wanted to make a graceful exit and, as gus correctly points out, I needed to be sure that I had my next gig lined up. In the end I never used these people for a reference and never would so a graceful exit may not have mattered. They may not have a clue but I still wanted to behave in a professional manner. Believe me, if I could find a full-time FOSS gig that was sane I'd gladly take something of a pay cut. In this economy finding anything or getting anyone to sign on the bottom line is a real problem, at least here in the U.S. |
| Sander_Marechal Feb 20, 2009 5:58 AM EDT |
@caitlyn: I don't know what your qualifications are, but when I wrote a series of articles about the innards of SugarCRM module building, quite a few job offers landed in my inbox. I see your writings everywhere. Haven't people made you decent offers yet? |
| caitlyn Feb 20, 2009 9:51 AM EDT |
@Sander: No, aside from a few freelance writing gigs (which I've done) my writing has not translated into an offer. When I write more technical articles (like my internationalisation tutorial for Slackware last month) they mostly get ignored -- few hits, fewer comments. If I write a review or opinion piece it gets lots of traffic and comments but it generally isn't a good way for me to show off my technical skills. That's the only explanation I can think of. |
| NoDough Feb 20, 2009 11:44 AM EDT |
>> ...I wrote a series of articles about the innards of SugarCRM module building... Business centric. >> ...I write more technical articles (like my internationalisation tutorial for Slackware last month) ... Not so much. |
| gus3 Feb 20, 2009 11:53 PM EDT |
Quoting:When I write more technical articles (like my internationalisation tutorial for Slackware last month) they mostly get ignored -- few hits, fewer comments.Funny, on my site it's the opposite. The most technical article I've written is the one that gets the most hits. |
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