Since Ximian does not offer a distro for Slackware for the Evolution Suite, I thought I might make mention of a solution that might plague a few Slackware 8.1 users.

If you get the message: "Cannot initialize the Evolution shell.", the answer is not at http://support.ximian.com, under the support topic: "Why can't I initialize the Evolution shell?"

However, in a little more detail, the source of the evil for Slackware 8.1 is upgrading to a new version of Mozilla.

When you install Slackware 8.1 for the first time, Evolution will work just fine, however if you:

1. Download a new mozilla release
2. Use pkgtool to uninstall the current mozilla
3. Install the new mozilla release, you will get the error "Cannot initialize the Evolution shell.".

To fix this:

1. log in as su or root

2. joe /etc/ld.so.conf

3. add the line "/usr/local/mozilla" at the end of the file

4. type ldconfig -v in xterm or eterm or whatever-term and verify that the "/usr/local/mozilla" directory is included with the list of libraries.

5. log out as root

6. log into your normal user

That solved the problem for me, however if their is other posts or suggestions about solving Ximian Evolution problems on Slackware 8.1, please let us know!

Hope this helps alittle...

Use Pine
I used evolution before, and it's a very nice program, but just feels to bloated. How much of it do you actually use? I switched to Pine and i'm finding it much nicer. Sylpheed is a very good choice too.
-NSKL