[gentoo-user] Kmail2 with standalone PostgreSQL - first impressions

[Mick]

Some initial impressions after 3 weeks of daily usage:

1. Sometimes akonadi does not start when I start Kmail.  The kmail window is 
greyed out with the message "The Akonadi personal information management 
service is not running.  This application cannot be used without it."  The 
greyed out area has a button to 'Start' Akonadi in the middle of it.  If I 
click 'Start' Akonadi starts and the Kmail application window is accessible 
again.  During that time the Kmail application has no problem connecting to 
the mail server and downloading messages, as I can see from the progress bar, 
but nevertheless Akonadi stops me accessing the application.

2. As I read, delete, reply, at some point kmail will sync its Gmail Inbox.  
Although I have purposefully deleted most of my 120k+ messages sync'ing still 
causes kmail to freeze when trying to display a new message (not yet 
downloaded), showing a blue window in the preview pane with the message:  
"Retrieving folder contents.  Please wait ..."  20 or more seconds later 
folder syncing is finished and the content of the message I have selected 
displays, but I find this disruptive and annoying.[A]

3. I noticed that sometimes when I delete a message on Gmail, it ends up in 
the Local Trash/Wastebin folder, not Gmail's.  I think that this happens when 
I delete something *while* the Gmail account is being sync'ed.

4. When I shutdown kmail and then shutdown the PC, it takes 3 or more minutes 
to shutdown, instead of a few seconds.  This is what the postgres logs show:

=======================================
STATEMENT:  BEGIN
LOG:  received smart shutdown request
LOG:  autovacuum launcher shutting down
LOG:  received fast shutdown request
LOG:  aborting any active transactions
FATAL:  terminating connection due to administrator command
FATAL:  terminating connection due to administrator command
FATAL:  terminating connection due to administrator command
[snip ...]

FATAL:  terminating connection due to administrator command
FATAL:  terminating connection due to administrator command
LOG:  shutting down
LOG:  database system is shut down
LOG:  database system was shut down at 2016-01-04 07:33:24 GMT
=======================================

I'm guessing this is caused by akonadi not exiting gracefully, because when I 
stop akonadi first shutdown is snappy again.

5.  When I create a draft message, save it (on the IMAP server draft folder) 
and then save it once more, a second draft message is created on the server.  
The second message has my signature added twice at the bottom of it.  If I 
open to edit and save as draft a message a number of times I end up with 
multiple messages and multiple signatures (in the last draft).  Sending a 
previously draft message does not clear it out of the draft folder.

6. Intermittent connectivity because of an unreliable wireless connection does 
not seem to affect Kmail.  When the connection comes back up it will continue 
where it left off.

7. Perhaps most importantly I have not yet had a database corruption, lost any 
messages, or have any major gripes to cause me to regret moving over to 
Kmail2.  My 4G RAM and a 6 year old 1st generation i7 do not seem to be a 
constraint in running Kmail2.  I noticed once/twice postgres and akonadi 
taking up 40% of CPU time each, but otherwise the PC functioned properly at 
the time.  However, it is worth mentioning that I have disabled the Baloo 
indexer, without any noticeable adverse effect.

None of the above bugs/features are show stoppers for me.  Given my experience 
to date I have to say that Kmail2 on a quad core CPU and at least 4G RAM is 
usable, unless the above bugs/features would annoy you.  I have yet to perform 
a postgres update and should read up on this, because last time I updated a 
postgresql database was more than 8 years ago - things have changed since.

Thank you again Joost for your help and advice in getting Kmail2 + postgresql 
configured.  You acted as a trigger for me to move off Kmail1, in the nick of 
time, because an older P4 box with Kmail1 is now having blockers updating 
KDEPIM.  :-)


[A] I still have a large number (c.5000) of unread messages in my Inbox and it 
is this folder which is causing most delays during sync.  I will mark all of 
them as read or delete what I do not wish to keep soon, to see if this makes 
any difference in the sync'ing delays I am experiencing.

-- 
Regards,
Mick