I just set up Ubuntu on a computer for my wife today. My first attempt at a working system rather than just a demo.

For certain reasons, afterwards I found it necessary to change passwords in the Evolution account. There does not seem to be an obvious way to do this from within Evolution. A bit of "guru" level advice says that something has to be deleted in some "gnome" directory, presumably on the occult command line level of business - but this was a several-years old msg and perhaps Evolution has "evolved". At my newbie level, I am afraid to do anything like deleting things in directories I don't understand.

Also, is there a way to import mail from Outlook Express .dbx folder files? Wife has thousands of valuable emails on her defunct WinXP computer.

Finally, at one point Evolution asks for a "keyring password". Not only do I not know the password, I have never heard of the "keyring". Looking this up with a search engine gives an incomprehensible (to me, a newbie) explanation. Can I ignore this? Is there an explanation of why this heretofore unknown bit of Ubuntu arcana should surface? I thought Ubuntu was the Linux for the "rest of us".

Should I just junk Evolution and install Mozilla Thunderbird? If so, is there a way to import the emails my wife has downloaded (733 at last count) from Evolution into Thunderbird?

What a mess...

Open Evolution. Click on Edit>Preferences>Mail Accounts. Select the account name. Click "Edit". You can then change the password, or whatever else is associated with the account. I don't think there is any need to delete a directory.

For getting to the Outlook emails, you need them in mbox format. Unfortunately, Evolution does not directly import them. You can install Thunderbird. Thunderbird will import the Outlook messages and convert them to mbox format. You can then import from Thunderbird to Evolution by selecting File>Import from the Evolution menu.

Thanks for pointing out how to deal with passwords! Once you see how to do it, looks obvious.

I will take your advice and install Thunderbird. Two questions. Why would I want to keep Evolution? It doesn't seem so flexible or so universally used as Thunderbird. It seems advisable to then import all the email now in Evolution into Thunderbird and then scrap Evolution. Is that possible? Does it make sense?

I am still mystified about this "keyring" business. It does seem that if you "cancal", Evolution still works. If it does nothing, is there a way to turn off the nag message?

If you are using the Gnome desktop (default for Ubuntu), Evolution's calendar is integrated with Gnome's. Calendar appointment alarms will ring and notify you on the desktop. Also, the little mini-calendar in Gnome (clickable on upper right hand corner of screen) will show your appointments and tasks from Evolution. Also, other calendars, like those in Google, CalDav, web calendars, etc., can be added to Evolution so you have all calendars in one place.

In summary, the calendaring functions of Evolution are the main reason I use it. Thunderbird is fine if all you want is an email client. Thunderbird doesn't come with a calendar, but you can add one (called Lightning, but it is not as mature or full-featured as Evolution's calendar).

The solution to the keyring issue is found in post#7 here.

Well, all I want is a simple email client. My wife (the intended user of this system) has used Evolution for a couple of days and detests it. Furthermore, it does look easier (in theory) to move emails between Outlook Express and Thunderbird, so I am trying to configure Thunderbird and will abandon Evolution. Thanks for explaining enough about Evolution so we know to avoid it.

So I installed Thunderbird.

Now I have a new problem. I can't seem to configure Thunderbird. At support.mozillamessaging.com, the instructions for "configuring an account" say to open the account settings by going to Tools|Account Settings. But when I click on Tools, there is no Account Settings on the menu presented. The menu appearing for "Tools" is only as follows:

Address Book
Saved Files
Add-Ons
Activity Manager
Message Filters
(some greyed-out options here regarding filtering)
Import
Error Console

...and that's it. No "Account Settings"!!!!

Am I doing something wrong? Or is this a bug or damaged installation?

If you are using office365 account, you just have to go under Evolution Preferences -> choose account -> Edit -> Receiving Email: Under Host URL you just click on 'Fetch URL' and you will be asked to apply new password. When you pass through authentication you won't be asked for password any more.

BR,
Sasha