KMail
Since I had a little time yesterday, I decided to give KMail another chance. To be more precise, I installed the entire KDE-PIM (or Kontact) suite.
Why?
Basically, I’m quite happy with Thunderbird, but what bothers me about KDE is the lack of system integration—notifications about new emails only work when the program is running.
- The same applies to appointment notifications
- Checking incoming emails for viruses is only possible through workarounds (having Clamd monitor the directory slows Thunderbird down significantly).
The main reason for installing it, however, was simply curiosity.
Installation
When you "buy" the KDE PIM Suite, you also get a whole bunch of Akonadi stuff thrown in. Without the Akonadi services, there is no PIM Suite, since Akonadi provides the services for the individual programs. Depending on what features are enabled in the suite's programs, this can add up to quite a few processes.
However, these “only” use RAM and don’t put much of a load on my CPU.
BTW: Thunderbird also used up about 700 MB of RAM with my configuration.
Installing the entire suite took just a few minutes, and setting up the mailboxes was just as quick.
Even at first glance, I find the look and feel—and the integration with the Plasma desktop—somehow sleeker than with Thunderbird.
As is typical with KDE, you can adjust countless settings and customize the suite to your needs.
There are, however, a few hurdles—which might be deal-breakers for some people.
Google Contacts
Just as it’s not possible to add a Google account to the online accounts in my Kubuntu installation (neither in 23.04 nor in 23.10), no Google contacts are added to the suite. Calendar yes, contacts no.
Since my contacts are stored on my Synology NAS anyway (which can be easily integrated), this wasn’t a big deal for me.
Signatures
The email signature allows you to add images and insert HTML source code.
If these are images linked to your XING account, for example, the links will be removed when you save.
For whatever reason...
Notifications
Unfortunately, after installing the PIM Suite, the notifications stopped working. But that was exactly one of the reasons why I installed the suite in the first place.
After doing some research, I finally found the solution in this article.
The solution is to install two additional packages:
- libkf5akonadicalendar-bin
- Calendar
After that, notifications about new emails work without any problems, even without launching a program from the PIM Suite (Kontact, Kmail, etc.).
You can probably guess: This convenience comes at the cost of RAM...
Memory Requirements
The Akonadi processes are using about 400 MB of RAM on my system. Kontact uses another 250 MB. That brings me to roughly the same amount of memory that Thunderbird is using.
On top of that are the calendar reminders, which take up just under 600 MB.
It’s possible that the amount of memory these programs and processes consume also depends on the available RAM.
With pretty much everything that can be enabled currently active (including calendar integration via the digital clock on the taskbar), I’m paying for the convenience of the KDE PIM Suite with about 1.3 GB of RAM—which isn’t a problem with 128 GB of available memory.
On systems with relatively little RAM, I wouldn’t install the entire suite, at least.
Update:
I took the time to add up the memory used by the processes. It certainly looks as though the Akonadi processes are also included in the Calendar reminders. Apparently, these are listed cumulatively in the Calendar Reminders section under “Programs.”
This means:
Total memory used by the PIM Suite’s running processes: 600 MB. That’s 400 MB less than initially assumed.
Processor Load
Unless a calendar, address book, or KMail is open, the Akonadi processes don't put any load on my CPU. They're basically just sitting idle.
Calendar reminders hover somewhere between 0 and 0.2%—so they don’t really put any load on the processor either.
When KContact is running, the CPU load hardly changes at all.
I never get above 5 percent load—not even when searching for emails while the mailbox is syncing.
Conclusion
With the KDE PIM Suite, the price you pay for the convenience of a fully featured personal information manager is quite a bit of RAM. But it doesn't slow down the system.
I'm curious to see if Akonadi will still run smoothly even after extended use...
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