[gentoo-user] Kmail issues/questions

[Daniel D Jones]

I've been using Kmail for some time but am running into a couple of issues.  
I'm not sure if they're actually Kmail issues and if they're actually outside 
the Kmail program.

First, using spamassassin, Kmail freezes every time it checks my mail.  If I 
have only a few messages, it might freeze for a few seconds.  If I have a lot 
of messages, it might take 30 or 45 seconds before the program starts 
responding again.  If I'm in the middle of, say, typing an email, the key 
presses are stored and processed once the program starts responding again.  
If I turn off email processing through spamassassin, the issue either goes 
away or the freeze is so quick as to be unnoticeable.  I can understand it 
taking time to process incoming email but I don't understand why it can't be 
done in the background on a modern system.  Is this normal behavior or is 
there an issue with either Kmail or spamassassin?

Second, Kmail doesn't seem very adept at handling folders with lots of 
messages.  I have one folder which has about 40k messages in it.  It's the 
archives of a mailing list I run and I expect it to grow much larger 
relatively quickly.  It's in maildir format on a reiserfs volume.  Just 
clicking on the folder makes  Kmail freeze for about four of five seconds 
before it displays a list of messages in the window and becomes responsive to 
key presses and mouse clicks again.  If I try to search for messages in the 
folder, the search will run for a minute or two and Kmail will crash.  Every 
time.  This rather defeats the purpose of having an archive folder.  Is 
anyone else using Kmail with folders holding thousands of email messages?  
Have you seen these issues?  If Kmail is working well in those circumstances 
for you, are you using maildir or mbox?  What file system?

I'd also be interested in reports of anyone using Evolution with large 
folders, or recommendations  for other email clients.  I'd be particularly 
interested in one which precreates indexes to speed up searches.

Thanks,

Dan

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