Test Driving Linux

Chapter 6. Email, Organizers, and Instant Messaging

There are dozens of email, chat, and contact programs on Linux. Some of these programs mimic the look and feel of their Windows counterparts so closely that you almost can't tell the difference. Move comes with Kontact, a personal information manager that provides many of the same functions as Microsoft Outlook, including email, a contact manager, to-do lists, calendar and appointment management, and even little sticky notes. And because this is Linux, running Kontact does not leave your machine vulnerable to email viruses.

Move also provides an instant messenger client called Kopete, which allows you to connect to practically any instant message network in existence. With this program, you can connect to the AOL, MSN, Yahoo, Jabber, and even IRC networks and chat with friends, family, and coworkers. This chapter explains the basic workings of Kontact and Kopete, along with a few advanced features.

Making Kontact

Kontact is KDE's answer to the personal information manager Microsoft Outlook. Like Outlook, Kontact allows you to manage your email, contacts, calendars, and to-do lists in a single program (Figure 6-1). Kontact actually comprises several individual KDE components; for instance, its email capabilities come from KMail, the organizer and to-do component from KOrganizer, the contact management from KAddressbook, and the newsgroup reader from KNode. All of these programs can be run individually, but the KDE programmers ...