annew wrote:If you want to run the latest versions you are assisting in testing and development. If you don't want to do that, use one of the stable versions that are some way behind.

In the case of KDE PIM and Akonadi we're not given a choice. The so-called _stable_ versions are in fact unstable or missing functionality. Unless by _stable_ you meant the 3.5 series, in which case I would withdraw my objection.

If by trying out the 4.x series, we're helping testing and development, perhaps it would have better to advise users that we're still in testing mode. It has been my impression since at least the 4.3 release that KDE was billing itself as ready for production. The distributions certainly are pushing those releases out as if that was true.

Whatever the case, I am quite frustrated by KAddressBook/Akonadi. And I am getting very afraid of what the KMail move to Akonadi is going to bring in the current 4.5.x series.

This is not the first time I have to think that bundling is not a good thing. I do wish I could keep on using the 4.3 versions of KAddressBook and KMail, but still get the benefits of the rest of KDE 4.5+. After all, these are pretty mature applications. Other than Akonadi and perhaps some UI goodies, there's nothing new to bring to these apps.

Unfortunately, we're not going to be given a choice. It's all or nothing, and that makes me extremely uncomfortable.

As a footnote: I have been using KDE non-stop for the past 10 years. I first compiled KDE 1.1 on Debian on a 486-33. I don't compile anything nowadays. I no longer have the patience, as in « I'm getting too old for this! »

Regards
Philippe

Please note that it is the choice of your distributor on which version of the "kdepim" module to ship with. Due to binary compatibility, it should be possible to use kdepim from 4.3 on a KDE 4.5 system if one wished.

I would recommend using kdepim from the enterprise4 branch however instead, as that includes the latest fixes and doesn't depend on Akonadi. enterprise5 will depend on Akonadi.

bcooksley wrote: enterprise5 will depend on Akonadi.

Looking at the resources my process table suggests it's already using without being depended on, the future feels rather bleak...

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USER       PID %CPU %MEM    VSZ   RSS TTY      STAT START   TIME COMMAND
tony     30952  0.0  0.1  83140  3372 ?        Sl   14:47   0:01 /usr/bin/akonadi_control
tony     30954  0.0  0.2 297068  5376 ?        Sl   14:47   0:00 akonadiserver
tony     30956  0.0  1.3 229108 27728 ?        Sl   14:47   0:05 /usr/sbin/mysqld --defaults-file=/home/tony/.local/share/akonadi//mysql.conf --datadir=/home/tony/.local/share/akonadi/db_data/ --socket=/home/tony/.local/share/akonadi/db_misc/mysql.socket
tony     30992  0.0  0.4 214472  8272 ?        S    14:47   0:00 /usr/bin/akonadi_contacts_resource --identifier akonadi_contacts_resource_0
tony     30993  0.0  0.4 235828  8620 ?        S    14:47   0:00 /usr/bin/akonadi_ical_resource --identifier akonadi_ical_resource_0
tony     30994  0.0  0.4 235828  8616 ?        S    14:47   0:00 /usr/bin/akonadi_ical_resource --identifier akonadi_ical_resource_1
tony     30995  0.0  0.4 216488  8332 ?        S    14:47   0:00 /usr/bin/akonadi_kabc_resource --identifier akonadi_kabc_resource_0
tony     30996  0.0  0.4 273860  9312 ?        S    14:47   0:00 /usr/bin/akonadi_kabc_resource --identifier akonadi_kabc_resource_1
tony     30997  0.0  0.4 229784  9368 ?        S    14:47   0:00 /usr/bin/akonadi_kabc_resource --identifier akonadi_kabc_resource_2
tony     30998  0.0  0.3 194228  8052 ?        S    14:47   0:00 /usr/bin/akonadi_knut_resource --identifier akonadi_knut_resource_0
tony     31003  0.0  0.4 238344  8524 ?        S    14:47   0:00 /usr/bin/akonadi_kolabproxy_resource --identifier akonadi_kolabproxy_resource
tony     31004  0.0  0.3 207900  8148 ?        S    14:47   0:00 /usr/bin/akonadi_maildir_resource --identifier akonadi_maildir_resource_0
tony     31005  0.0  0.3 199260  8164 ?        S    14:47   0:00 /usr/bin/akonadi_maildispatcher_agent --identifier akonadi_maildispatcher_agent
tony     31006  0.0  0.4 230264  8236 ?        Sl   14:47   0:00 /usr/bin/akonadi_nepomuk_contact_feeder --identifier akonadi_nepomuk_contact_feeder
tony     31007  0.0  0.4 214572  8392 ?        S    14:47   0:00 /usr/bin/akonadi_vcard_resource --identifier akonadi_vcard_resource_10
tony     31008  0.0  0.4 214492  8364 ?        S    14:47   0:00 /usr/bin/akonadi_vcard_resource --identifier akonadi_vcard_resource_11
tony     31009  0.0  0.4 214492  8352 ?        S    14:47   0:00 /usr/bin/akonadi_vcard_resource --identifier akonadi_vcard_resource_3
tony     31010  0.0  0.4 214492  8356 ?        S    14:47   0:00 /usr/bin/akonadi_vcard_resource --identifier akonadi_vcard_resource_4
tony     31011  0.0  0.4 214492  8352 ?        S    14:47   0:00 /usr/bin/akonadi_vcard_resource --identifier akonadi_vcard_resource_5
tony     31012  0.0  0.4 214492  8352 ?        S    14:47   0:00 /usr/bin/akonadi_vcard_resource --identifier akonadi_vcard_resource_6
tony     31013  0.0  0.4 214492  8352 ?        S    14:47   0:00 /usr/bin/akonadi_vcard_resource --identifier akonadi_vcard_resource_7
tony     31014  0.0  0.4 214488  8348 ?        S    14:47   0:00 /usr/bin/akonadi_vcard_resource --identifier akonadi_vcard_resource_8
tony     31015  0.0  0.4 214492  8352 ?        S    14:47   0:00 /usr/bin/akonadi_vcard_resource --identifier akonadi_vcard_resource_9
tony     31016  0.0  0.4 214456  8268 ?        S    14:47   0:00 /usr/bin/akonadi_vcarddir_resource --identifier akonadi_vcarddir_resource_1


Please note that the KDE 4.x series is seperate to the Enterprise branches. Enterprise4 is based on the KDE 4.3 and earlier PIM. Enterprise5 is Akonadi based, and is KDE 4.4 and later.

I did not know about the Enterprise series. Are there plans to maintain Enterprise 4? And how do we get it?

I'd much rather not have to compile anything though. I'm also looking at other solutions such as running an IMAP and a web mail server locally. That would pretty much solve any dependance on Akonadi.

Philippe

The Enterprise 4 series is commercially supported, and is maintained.

The conclusion of this thread seems to be that unless you want to make a lot of effort over-riding what the distros include, Akonadi is inevitable if you want to use Kmail.

Looking at what the Mandriva control centre says it needs to remove due to dependencies if I uninstall Akonadi, apart from Kmail it's all stuff I don't use anyway (korganizer, kalarm, knode, etc).

So I think it's time to say goodbye to Kmail, goodbye to a non-functioning addressbook, goodbye to Akonadi and hello to Thunderbird, hello to a working addressbook and a big "welcome back" to the ridiculous 200M of RAM (10% of what my motherboard will hold) that Akonadi is hogging.

Code: Select all

$ free -m
             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:          2010       1811        198          0        324        564
-/+ buffers/cache:        922       1088
Swap:        24207         15      24191
$ pkill akonadi
$ free -m
             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:          2010       1604        405          0        324        568
-/+ buffers/cache:        711       1298
Swap:        24207         15      24191


We've had a good ten years together, but it's time to part.

"There are concepts that you are clearly unaware of." is insulting, demeaning and demotivating.

But I do understand now that KDE 4.4.3 was released missing a major functionality. Thanks for the heads up.

"There are concepts that you are clearly unaware of." is neither insulting nor demeaning - it is a statement of fact. UserBase has the information you need. The feature you asked about is not missing - I use it myself, as of course do many other users - but you do have to set up the resources correctly.

annew wrote:"There are concepts that you are clearly unaware of." is neither insulting nor demeaning - it is a statement of fact. UserBase has the information you need. The feature you asked about is not missing - I use it myself, as of course do many other users - but you do have to set up the resources correctly.

It's attitudes like this that do a lot to prevent Linux becoming the mainstream operating system it ought to be.
The average computer user (and indeed those of us with more experience but better things to do) has neither the time nor the inclination to track down and delve into documentation to find out why functionality that used to exist is no longer available after a routine update (such as a new version of their distribution).

OK, so a big step from, say, KDE3 to KDE4 can reasonably be expected to involve a good deal of reconfiguring, but users shouldn't have to worry about what's going to stop working every time there's a step-release.

To quote from http://userbase.kde.org/KAddressBook_4.4, which was referred to earlier,

KAddressBook is a work-in-progress. That doesn't mean that it's unstable but it does mean that it's not complete. The layout you see in this version is very different from the older version, and it's quite possible that the next version will be different again, as we see more features being available to us again.

Or to put it another way,

We had a perfectly functional addressbook, but we've scrapped it and replaced it with a new one that won't do the things you used to be able to use it for. Oh, and by the way, we're probably going to break it again some time in the future.

Can underscribe the above frustrations.
My wife used KMail many years.
Since last week we switched her over to Thunderbird, and she is happy again.
That is, where it is e-mail concerned.

annew wrote:There are concepts that you are clearly unaware of.

Quite amazing answer to a user just and simply looking for his contacts which should be feasible in year 2010.

What do you mean by "use one of the stable versions that are some way behind" ?
Do you mean KDE3.5 ?
Assuming KDE4.5 is not the last official release ? http://www.kde.org/
Can you clarify what is "one of the stable versions" ?
This should be very clearly communicated to distributions.

This is really sad. I have been working with KDE for some years.

Recently Upgraded from Kubuntu 9.04 to 10.04

Spent about a week trawling the websites trying to get Kontact/Kaddressbook/Akonadi to work together.

I rely really heavily on distribution lists at work...I know call me old fashioned be they work for me.

I got sooooo close.... No matter what I do I cannot use distribution lists.

Sometimes I can't even create them.

Sometimes I can create them but they won't persist...they dissappear from Kaddressbook when the Akonadi agent tries to update the database; be it a file or a directory of a db connection whatever.

Sometimes I can actually create a distribution list but then I can't use it.

As I said this is really sad. These simple functions worked before I upgraded..

So I have to ask ... what happened to the KISS principle. PIM and so forth sound great but not at the expense of a system that works.

Sorry to say I have thrown in the towel and moved over to Evolution.. It is not as clever or as pretty but hey, it works....

Nude-i-man

I recently installed OpenSuse 11.3, after waiting for several months to let the bugs get worked out. It uses Kontact KDEPIM 4.4.5

Since I installed on top of my old /home directory, it seemed to find my email OK.

What's not is Kaddressbook. I want to find my distribution lists. I don't care that you changed the name to groups but what did you do with the existing categories? I have several thousand people in my old address book all carefully categorized. Where are the categories? How do I change this horrible default view?

I read through the material at the link provided earlier and it's simply impossible to follow. It appears to refer to non-existent files and tells me to enable nepomuk. When I go to KDE Resources there is no mention of nepomuk. It's not even listed in software management in Yast.

At this point, before I backlevel to OpenSuse 11.2, where KDEPIM mostly worked, are there fixes for this dismal situation?

I need my addressbook, and don't have time to re-enter several thousand entries.

Since I've had no replies here, I've reinstalled OpenSuse 11.2 with a previous version of KDEPIM.

Fortunately, since I did not reformat my home page, all my data was still there, and I now have a working kaddressbook again.

I do want to make a few comments.

I've been using KDE since 3.3.

I like and appreciate the features.

But I just want my computer to work, so I can do my jobs with it.

I've gone through the KDE 4.0 debacle, and ended up using KDE 3.5.10 for a long time until most of the KDEPIM features worked again.

I have no desire to go through it again.

When I installed OpenSuse 11.3 it came with KDEPIM 4.4.5, which was frankly unusable. I rely on the existing features and to release a new version with a major part of it non-working (Kaddressbook) is simply foolish.

When that's done you seriously **** off many of the existing users like me.

Discovering what happened, reading about the problem, trying to get it working and finally re-installing the previous version wasted half a day of my time I'll never get back.

I know that KDEPIM needed to be upgraded, and I'm glad the developers are doing so, particularly since I don't have the expertise to write code. And it's certainly not just the developers who are responsible for this unsatisfactory situation - it's also the distros.

The KDE 4.0 debacle arose because distros were so anxious to have the latest packages, KDE4.0 was added to them despite its unreadiness. And we as users were so eager to have the latest software we ignored any possible warning signs that 4.0 wasn't ready.

Having said all that, I'm trying hard not to dump on the developers. I'd much rather not have a new version of KDEPIM released until it's all working, including the existing features of Kaddressbook THAT I RELY ON. I need addressbooks to include distribution lists, and I need addressbooks that don't leave off critical information already entered in my existing addressbook. There absolutely must be a user friendly way to migrate existing addressbooks and distribution lists seamlessly to a new system.

I hope the distros are watching, too, and that they resist the temptation to add new versions of software until they work properly.