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issue153:ubuntu_au_quotidien

Ceci est une ancienne révision du document !


I hope everyone is having a great new year! Now seems like a very apt time to talk about personal information management in the light of a very common New Year’s Resolution, the commitment to become better organized in 2020. Program Choices Personal Information Management, being a core part of computer functionality for most computer owners and users, it should come as no surprise that there are multiple Personal Information Manager applications available on Linux. Common and well-regarded ones include Evolution, Kontact, and Lightning/Thunderbird. I was always partial to Kontact back in my pre-Ubuntu Linux days when I was running SUSE or Fedora. Coming from a Windows and Microsoft Office background, I found Kontact’s interface similar to Microsoft Outlook and therefore comfortingly familiar. However, upon switching to Ubuntu, I found that Thunderbird was easier to set up and not very hard to learn, so I switched to it.

J'espère que votre nouvelle année à tous est géniale ! Maintenant semble un très bon moment pour parler de la gestion des informations personnelles étant donnée une résolution de début d'année très habituelle : l'engagement à mieux s'organiser en 2020.

Choix du programme

La gestion d'informations personnelles (Personal Information Management ou PIM) étant au cœur de l'informatique pour la plupart des propriétaires et des utilisateurs d'ordinateurs, cela ne devrait pas vous étonner d'apprendre qu'il y a de multiples applis de PIM disponibles pour Linux. Celles qui sont courantes et bien considérées comprennent Evolution, Kontact et Lightning/Thunderbird.

Je préférais toujours Kontact à l'époque où je ne connaissais pas encore Ubuntu, quand j'étais sous SUSE ou Fedora. Vendant d'un context Windows et Microsoft Office, j'ai trouvé que l'interface de Kontact ressemblait à celle de Microsoft Outlook et était donc très rassurant. Cependant, quand j'ai migré vers Ubuntu, j'ai trouvé que Thunderbird était plus facile à configurer et pas trop difficile à apprendre ; aussi, je l'ai adopté.

An important aspect to most Personal Information Managers, or PIM’s, is their integration with email. Of course, Thunderbird is primarily thought of as an email client, but it does have some PIM capability built in ‘out-of-the-box’, and gains even more if you install the Lightning plug-in. I have to chuckle these days at the memory of using Schedule+ as my PIM back in 1995 or so, and being singularly unenthused at the upcoming Outlook 97, as I saw little or no connection between PIM functionality and email. Live and learn, I guess. Thunderbird also has the advantage of a solid cross-platform footprint, meaning that once you learn it on Linux, you can carry that knowledge and familiarity over if you switch to MacOS or Windows at some later date, or if you use multiple operating systems on a regular basis, like I do. So, due to simplicity and universality, we’re going to go with Thunderbird as our primary PIM and email client, at least for the time being.

Un élément important dans la plupart des gestionnaires d'informations personnelles, ou PIM, est leur intégration avec un client mail. Bien sûr, Thunderbird est considéré avant tout d'être un client mail, mais il a quelques capacités PIM intégrées et disponibles dès l'installation. De plus, il en aura davantage si vous installez le greffon Lightning. Je ris sous cape ces jours-ci quand je me souviens des années 1995 quand j'utilisais Schedule+ comme PIM et que le prochain Outlook 97 ne me passionnait point, car je ne voyais peu ou pas de rapport entre les fonctionnalités PIM et le client mail, du moins sur le moment.

Thunderbird Installation

Thunderbird can be installed using Synaptic Package Manager or apt-get, the command-line installation tool. For details on how to install software, see Everyday Ubuntu in Full Circle Magazine #130. We’re going to use apt-get here, because it’s very easy and straightforward. It is a command-line, or text-based, tool, but it’s really easy to use, so don’t be afraid!

Go to the terminal (usually the third icon from the top on the Launcher that runs down the left-hand side of the screen), or go to the Dash – top icon on the Launcher on screen left and type in term, then click the terminal icon:

and in the terminal type:

sudo apt-get install thunderbird

then hit the Enter key on your keyboard. The command sudo stands for super user do, and tells Linux that you want to perform a command that’s allowed only to administrators, or superusers. Enter your Super User or administrator password that you set up during Linux’s initial installation. This will start a Super User installation routine for Thunderbird. You will need to be connected to the internet for this command to operate, as it will have to download Thunderbird’s installation files. Once it’s complete, we’re ready to set up email.

Email Setup

Now we’re ready to set up an email account in Thunderbird. Your Internet Service Provider (ISP) may have given you an email account, in which case you’ll have to get setup information from them. If you don’t already have an email account, or want to set one up specific to your machine, you can get a free email account online from Google via their Gmail service. It’s free, and it’s a flexible service. Microsoft has the similar Outlook/Hotmail infrastructure, but it has only recently added support for POP protocol directly. POP stands for Post Office Protocol and is the protocol for email that we shall be using here, although a protocol called IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol) would also suit our purposes almost as well. The idea of selecting one of these protocols is so that we can download the emails to our local email client, Thunderbird, so we don’t have to be online to read them, and POP is a better choice for that. Thunderbird will download your emails when you are connected to the internet, then you can read them later whether you are still on the internet or not. Gmail also has the advantage of accessing the robust Google infrastructure so you can readily share information across different systems and devices.

Gmail Setup

First, fire up your web browser of choice, and go to gmail.com. You should see a screen allowing you to sign in or sign up.

Select the option to sign up and fill in all the information required. Once this is complete, you can sign in to Gmail in your browser and set up POP mail capability. To do so, go to the gear icon near the top right side of the screen and click it, then click Settings:

On the Settings screen, click the tab for Accounts and Import, then Forwarding and POP/IMAP: In the POP download section, choose Enable POP for all mail:

For number 2, select whether or not you want email to stay in Gmail’s inbox (a good choice if you’re going to use the account on multiple devices or access it via webmail/browser), or to delete from your online mailbox after you download to Thunderbird, or to archive from the online inbox after accessing via Thunderbird. Ignore the ‘mark as read’ option for now.

Thunderbird Client Setup

Now we’re ready to set up Thunderbird to access our new Gmail account. Use the Dash again to look up Thunderbird and click it to launch. On first run, Thunderbird will ask you for your account information.

Hit Continue after filling out the required info. You’ll get this dialogue box; Click POP3, then Create Account. As you can see, the Thunderbird servers already know configuration information for various ISP’s and email providers, including Gmail, so you can just provide your Gmail (or other email account) information and Thunderbird will set up everything for you – no muss, no fuss. Nice!

Thunderbird will now show you its main window:

Click Read Messages to see your Gmail inbox;

And that’s it! Now your email is set up to be accessed via Thunderbird! Next month, we’ll cover how to go beyond email to manage your personal information in Thunderbird.

Next month: Setting up Lightning to extend Thunderbird’s PIM capabilities.

issue153/ubuntu_au_quotidien.1581590926.txt.gz · Dernière modification : 2020/02/13 11:48 de auntiee