If you are having problems where evolution will retrieve email fine, but not load the contacts correctly, you are probably dealing with this bug. To resolve this issue, close evolution, and run ‘evolution –force-shutdown’. I also started the evolution-data-server in debug mode, but this appears to have fixed the issue, which may be caused from an improper shutdown.

Linux Centric Company
Novell has stated that it wants to be a big force in the enterprise, which involves linux. With statements like “Novell’s ongoing commitment to provide customers a full range of Linux solutions.” (http://www.novell.com/news/press/archive/2003/11/pr03069.html), we would expect that to be a leader, you would provide software compatible with atleast the major distributions.

State of Netware in Linux

• Groupwise Email Client – Evolution provides feature complete implementation
• Gaim / Pidgin – Provides groupwise instant messenger functionality
• ncpfs – Provides access to file shares – Incomplete (http://tldp.org/HOWTO/IPX-HOWTO-9.html with respect to permissions)

Novell Client Packages
Novell does not provide packages for Fedora, OpenSuse (sorry state of Novell on OpenSuse: https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=262319) or Ubuntu. There are RPMS available, but do not install without extreme tweaking and editing of files and symlinking directories.

Make it right
Dedicate 1 engineer to tying together existing open source utilities, and making a nice frontend (like the open source novel client), that ties everything together. This is not a large amount of work, and should increase novell’s reputation with the linux community, and people evaluating linux for enterprise desktop use.

Case in point
Supporting Linux != Not providing software for linux

Rebuttal?

Does anyone have novell’s linux client running under Ubuntu? I would think that since Novell wants to be a major player, this would be something they can clue me in on.

I got the ram upgraded in my Dell d620 system today:

Cpu0 : 1.7%us, 2.3%sy, 0.0%ni, 0.0%id, 95.3%wa, 0.0%hi, 0.7%si, 0.0%st
Cpu1 : 0.3%us, 6.3%sy, 0.0%ni, 0.0%id, 92.7%wa, 0.0%hi, 0.7%si, 0.0%st
Mem: 3106856k total, 3021508k used, 85348k free, 13216k buffers
Swap: 2441840k total, 0k used, 2441840k free, 2501928k cached

Now I can have a ton of vmware instances open at once. This machine has been absolutely wonderful for Linux / Ubuntu. Dual head 3d desktop: check. Suspend / Hibernate: check. Wireless: check. Docking station: check. Dvd burning: check. Having 2.5G of memory caching data: check check check.

Check out the Linux Action Show if you are into linux or technology. I have been listening for the past few months and it is a very fun to listen to show, and you don’t have to be a linux expert to enjoy it.