I use Gmail as a main mail account, and I just installed Ubuntu 8.10 on a new computer so this is a fresh start.

First of all, I tried using Outlook back in Windows about 5 years ago but I didn't get it. Then when I first started Ubuntu in around September I thought "now's the time, I'm going to get Evolution working- it shouldn't be hard. Most things in Ubuntu er pretty straight-forward" (this was back when I was using hotmail). I didn't get that to work either- so that is why I ask:

How on earth do I get Evolution to work? The place where I always stop at is the "Server type". <noob warning> Is this something you have to pay for? Which one do I use if I'm using Gmail?

I tried the user manual in Ubuntu but it didn't help at all, could someone please help me so I don't have to go 5 years again without a mail application.

Oh god, I'm sorry for being the guy who didn't Google it. Last time I think I did Google it for Hotmail though, but didn't find anything at first glance.

One question- why doesn't Canonical include a wizard set-up for this?
"If you're using Gmail then click here". I mean I'm decently computer literate and I didn't figure this out, so how would the average John Doe do it?

Is there maybe a reason why this hasn't been implemented?

He wood google I suppose

They can't include every mail service available.

Why can't they?

Ubuntu is trying to appeal to the normal guy, so I assume they want people to need to do as little Googling as possible. And even thought they can't include every mail service, they could still add the most common ones?

I don't know about you, but I'm pretty sure average people who don't know much about servers get scared when they see something like "Server type: POP", SSL encryptions, SMTP etc.

Even if they DO know how to Google it they might think "oh wow I don't understand anything, I'll just access my mail the way I used to". I'm not going to lie, that's what I thought. And this I think is exactly what Ubuntu has been trying to counter, amirite? Just look at how it has made things which were needlessly complicated (like the Installer for freeBSD) and turned them really easy (like the Ubuntu installer).