Hello,

I am using a lot MS Outlook under MS Windows, and it definitely rocks.

On Debian, Icedove is nice but cannot do much things. It cannot even read a PST file. Furthermore, to move and use mbox, it is really well done, just in 50 steps.

https://commons.lbl.gov/display/~jwe...th+Thunderbird

kmail is probably the best but it is broken and buggy on testing debian.

Would you have any ideas such as Pegasus, ... or stuffs like that simple but that works flawlessly.

Best regards
Pat

1 small question, do you want GOOD, or do you want comparable to Outlook? IMO these are 2 mutually exclusive things.

Also, you'll have a hard time finding too many programs that work WELL with pst's outside Micrososft. It's a non-open binary format that even M$ has a hard time writing software that can work with it correctly (I used to support windows, pst corruption was constant), so very few open source projects have even bothered TRYING.

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The operative word is, "comparable to Outlook." First of all, that's a purely-subjective measure. Second, it is a fairly irrelevant comparison.

The Microsoft folks designed Outlook specifically to operate in the Microsoft Windows environment ... which is a tightly vertically-integrated environment with a great many expectations and a great many quirks ... all of which are under Microsoft's full knowledge and control.

Yes, absolutely, I think that MS-Outlook is a fine product. (Yes, I just complimented Microsoft. Again.)

I have no qualms about saying that my colleagues in Redmond very much know what they are doing, in the very-funny little world that they have made for themselves! But, it really makes very little sense to hold it up as a "gold standard" for Linux, because the two environments are "apples and oranges." Linux has many aspects which Windows need not consider, and vice-versa. Each engineering group must focus on its audience.

(For example: a great deal of the traffic handled in a corporate Windows environment is handled by Exchange Server, not IMAP/SMTP. Microsoft's engineering team knows this. Meanwhile, a Linux-oriented engineering team is faced with an altogether-different set of parameters, and no "company-store certainty" to fall back on.

There are plenty of "good, lightweight email clients" out there, for every operating-environment imaginable. But, they may or may not be directly comparable to Microsoft Outlook. Nor should we expect them to be.

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I remember when first Outlook came out. It placed the cursor on top when you hit reply button. All new users started typing right there - on top of quoted part. Top-posting was born. You can still recognize old hands ... they replay on the bottom, as it would be normal in western world.

Have you tried Evolution?

I don't particularly like it as an email client (I use Claws and Mutt on my home machines), but my understanding is that it was designed with Microsoft Exchange compatibility in mind. I have always found it a bit clunky, but I recently had occasion to use it in testing something and it does seem improved since the last time I tried it.

This is an older article, but it does address that point: https://www.linux.com/learn/use-evol...exchange-linux

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That's great...so given how much you love Windows, and seemingly hate Linux (given the moaning and whining you do about the 'lack of xxx'), why don't you just use Windows???
Gee, really??? You mean that your favorite Microsoft product uses a proprietary format, that ONLY OUTLOOK can read??? You don't say??? And what 'much things' can it not do? If you mean group scheduling, no kidding....it's an EMAIL CLIENT. Evolution and Kontact support those features as the STANDARD Caldav protocol. Exchange **IS NOT** that.
...if you have a hard time reading simple instructions, and your mailboxes are local. If you're using IMAP (rather than Exchange), you do ONE step...log in to the IMAP server. Your subscribed folders come right up.
Again, REALLY???? You use a beta/testing version, and are AMAZED that there are bugs? Both Kmail and Evolution are VERY stable...if you don't use beta versions. Both are VERY good for replacing Outlook.
Use Outlook, since it's 'flawless'. IMAP support is VERY well established...why you have trouble with it is another issue. There are MANY IMAP email clients for Linux...pick one.

If you want to connect to an Exchange server, good luck. It's a Microsoft product...it only works with OTHER Microsoft products 'flawlessly'.

Try http://www.claws-mail.org/

It is in the Debian repos.

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Evolution is probably the most outlook like. Icedove (unbranded thunderbird?). I tend to like sylpheed for a gui email client, although I question if it supports modern encryption and doesn't send credentials in plain text. I might someday get proficient with mutt. But who the heck uses email these days. Or anything more than webmail anyway.

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You really can't use "lightweight email client" and "MS Outlook" in the same sentence and not look a little foolish. Outlook is anything BUT lightweight. However, I agree it is a pretty good email client, in functionality that is. In reliability/stability, I've had a few issues. Outlook goes off in its own little world sometimes and you have no idea what it's doing, why it's doing it, or if it's ever going to finish and give you back control.

For a while I used Evolution on my Linux computer in a Microsoft Outlook/Exchange server work environment. It worked well for 95% of what I needed to do, but there were a few things that weren't implemented in Evolution that Outlook had (this was several years ago). But if you're looking for a drop-in completely equivalent Outlook solution for Linux, I'm afraid that you'll have to drop-in a virtual machine, a Windows operating system, and the actual Outlook program itself.

Before going to that trouble, I would first ask myself - Do I really need a specific feature from Outlook that I don't have in other clients, or am I just looking for familiarity? If it's familiarity, you will be far happier just sticking with Windows. Linux doesn't try to mimic Windows. You will find equivalent functionality, superior in many respects, but not mimicry.

Other examples of having to learn/do things a little differently in Linux, but with applications just as powerful as in Windows, are switching from PhotoShop to Gimp. Or Visio to LibreCAD. Or iTunes to Rhythmbox. Or some massive/invasive Norton Security Suite to Iptables. Things are different in Linux, not worse, just different.

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I agree that Outlook is hardly light, but it is very powerful and there is nothing else that even gets close - MS, Windows, or Linux.
I have been using it for years and have spent quite some time trying to find an alternative - and failed.
One of the reasons is because I have used it as a document repository as much as a Mail Client and scan OCR and keep all my mail in there, which makes searching for documents easy compared to rummaging through boxes of letters - which are kept as well.

Sorry, but really?? A proprietary .PST file as a repository, rather than storing such things on a cloud-based drive, or even in Gmail?

I would never ever use cloud based storage of any sort.
Basically because, whatever is contracted, you are NOT in control of the store.

How many incidents of service providers being hacked are needed before people realize the stupidity of storing sensitive information online.
I would far rather store stuff in a PST file and put a copy in my fire safe every night.

I could never store anything in a pst. I've seen far too often how flaky and unreliable pst's are in my years of supporting windows clients.

I have never seen or had a problem in all the years they've been around and it was my life's work supporting computer systems in office environments.

Sorry, but it's FAR worse to have a crappy proprietary format/file as 'storage'. Add to the fact that ANYONE can just open/import that PST file that they could easily download/get from your 'fire safe' or over your network connection.

I encrypt EVERYTHING before putting it up on Google drive. Without a 4096 bit key and my passphrase, good luck getting to it, even if you 'hack' Google. Box is EXTREMELY secure...this is 2016. Local storage is worse.