Geary as a flatpak

Hardware Librem 5
1

Have deleted the Geary from PureOS and replaced it with the flatpak version. The flatpak is 4 releases newer and works a lot faster. Clearly a recommendation to do so

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2

Is at least 5-10 times faster working with my BIG IMAP account in the office :slight_smile:

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3

I gave up on Geary because of that focus bug. Touching or scrolling the message list is actually (but not always) acting on the (hidden) folder list behind the messages. And scrolling a message is actually scrolling the hidden message list. So sometimes what I do has no effect, sometimes it opens a totally unrelated view, sometimes it clicks a hidden button. Maybe I have unknowingly deleted or moved messages because of that. (I’m using Thunderbird instead, but not happy because UI is nearly unusable on the tiny Librem 5 screen.) If the focus issue is fixed on Flatpak Geary I might switch to that…

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4

We all know that Geary is not a very good - nor a good mail program.

But the alternatives like TB and others are absolutely unusable because of their screen layout :frowning:

Merkuro Mail can become an wonderful alternative but it is far from completion. So I use Geary and am happy that at least fundamental thinks like checking incoming mail work.

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5

Except that it can’t do POP email… :roll_eyes:

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6

For that purpose I’m using Claws mail client.

Also good to know is that it supports multiple mail protocols.

Is it the ideal solution on the L5?
Not yet: The gui has sometimes problems with the screen resolution.
But for only checking your mail it is so far OK to me.

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7

All these apps like Claws, TB and so on are quite unusable and a real pain on the L5. And only flatpaks can momentarily solve this because the debain base of the L5. So no app with an modern habit can be installed on this old old old debian base.

The possibilities of using a real good mail app are nearly 0% if You do not use Geary. I absolutely has no love for this app but ATM there is no other perspective :frowning:

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8

Well, to be honest, I do not find the flatpak route a serious solution and a security risk.
To quote Tom Hanks: “…like a box of chocolates, but you never know what’s in it”.
Also it uses way too much space.

It is clear that your need for a working app on the L5 is a complete different need as I have.
I respect that and I’m sorry that my suggestion does not help you.

Cheers :grinning:

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9

I have also tested other apps like Evolution, TB, Claws and Kmail

All of them have no adaption for the small screen resolution of the L5. I think it is the job of Purism to give us a actual Debian base and we can try more modern apps for that.

Nobody really has an interest to build packages for a such old system-base :frowning:

Same on apps like Signal. Only usable apps are flatpak :frowning:

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10

I use on my L5 since two years (and for more than 20 years on my laptops) the MUA mutt and here you have two screens, one of the index of my IMAP(s) inbox, the other of a single mail.

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photo_5436053383023810821_y640Ă—1280 172 KB

photo_5436053383023810822_y
photo_5436053383023810822_y640Ă—1280 133 KB

Works like a champ.

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11

why is it a security risk ?

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12

My first mail program is 34 years ahead and was “UUCP/Connect” :wink:

But here I have a business mailserver consisting of ca. 15 GB mail, hundred or more subfolders and a hierarchical structure. With KMail and Merkuro I can handle this :wink: Wit CLI-Tools a real heavy pain :wink:

My first computer was a CP/M machine but I love it to use nowadays Linux with KDE plasma and all the “nice things” I can do with :->

Therefore I would be glad having a GUI app which works flawlessly. If You can handle this with Mutt is absolutely fine but for this I need a real poroblem

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13

My first computer was a Commodore C64, I also used UUCP ci/co for reading and sendig mails written with elm or Usenet nn. Today I run FreeBSD on all my laptops with KDE plasma. Years ago I gave evolution a try (there are even fixes from me in the source), but I never gave up mutt. The size of your mails doesn’t matter and mutt is unbeatable fast in reading and assembling mails, faster than any GUI.

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14

Greetings from Sinclair Spectrum to Commodore :wink:

Mutt is fine, but Kmail with a SQL database also :slight_smile:

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15

I also see no bigger risk in using Flatpak apps. When the Developer wants to make me problem he can do this also in “normal” apps. Nobody can control million lines of code in the Linux universe every da from new

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16

Around mutt there is an active community and I can’t imagine that someone could git commit malicious code.

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17

Same here. Non-flatpak Geary has not been able to contact my Comcast mail server for a long time. The flatpak release finally fixed this issue.

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18

This article explains most of my feelings about using flatpaks.

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19

Yeah, but I do not think that anything we use here is something like safe in the IT

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20

i am aware of some of the downsides to using flatpak and i have seen this blog post before.

now regarding security, my question should have been what are some of your concerns regarding flatpak security ?

i mean there is a security risk to using the web, yet people still use it.

if i am using pureos and using the Epiphany browser, I would use the flatpak package from here Install Web on Linux | Flathub over using pureos package. at least it doesn’t suffer from the disclosed CVEs that i mentioned here Please be aware if you are using epiphany browser - #20 by Moon3

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