[CentOS] Multiple program instances or multiple log ins? -- Thunderbird profiles ...

[Bryan J. Smith]

Robert Moskowitz <rgm at htt-consult.com> wrote:
> Because Evolution (because of gnome) is very single user
> centric.

Then why are you using Evolution?

> This I missed in my searches.  Back to looking at
> Thunderbird.

Didn't we discuss this weeks ago (or was that another list)?

> Not confused.  I have been doing business this way for
> around 6 years now.

Yes, confused, because you are making assumptions on Eudora
and Windows usage.  I'm not questioning your experience for
how you do business.  I'm trying to get you to step back and
realize that you are using that past experience to guess what
you need to do.

Please keep this in mind at all times ...

  UNIX does _not_ act like Windows when it comes to the
_networked_ user experience -- especially for business
applications

It may emulate it somewhat at the application-level, but it
is very, very _different_ when it comes to multiuser --
radically!

> At any time I could have switched to a single executing
> copy of Eudora with multiple personalities.
> But I chose not to.

Evolution is not designed as such.
Groupwise is not designed as such.
Outlook is not designed as such (with 1 legacy, MAPI caveat
from pre-NT).

These corporate collaboration tools are designed for 1:1
user:object-framework.  That's GNOME's CORBA in the case of
Evolution.  That's GDI/Explorer's COM+ in the case Outlook.

Eudora is not designed for the 1:1 setup.
Outlook Express is not designed for the 1:1 setup.
[Mozilla] Thunderbird is not designed for the 1:1 setup.

As an enterprise administrator, I want a 1:1
user:object-framework setup when users login.  I do _not_
want users to have control over such.  That's what MS Outlook
is designed for.  That's what Evolution is designed for. 
That's what Novell Groupwise is designed for.

They are _not_ designed for what you want.  ;->

> It is important to maintain separateness of my identities. 

I understand this.
And I'm telling you that you are not looking for Evolution.

> And as things are developing, I may have to fragment
further
> than I have.  I have around 12 - 18 email accounts.  These
are
> grouped into (currently) 5 identities (I terminated one
> identity when a consulting gig ended abruptly).  I run at
least
> 2 identities all the time with their multiple
personalities.

In addition to having the ability and separation of multiple
e-mail accounts, the "Personalities" are called "Profiles" in
Thunderbird.  By default, the "default" profile is always
used (and _not_ prompted for) in Thunderbird.

Here's how you launch the profile manager in various OSes for
Thunderbird:  
  http://www.mozilla.org/support/thunderbird/profile  

Namely, you need to pass the "-profilemanager" option.

Once you have multiple profiles, when you launch Thunderbird,
it will prompt you for which one (unless you click the box
"Don't ask at startup").

If you already have one running, you will want to pass the
option again.  Otherwise, the currently running profile may
be assumed.

This is how _all_ the "Mozilla" suite of products work --
they can use multiple profiles.

Each profile can have one or more e-mail accounts, and their
folders _will_ be separated by default for _each_ e-mail
account setup.

> I run the others a couple times a day (desktop DOES get
> cluttered and memory consumed).
> All the work documents and mail are organized by identity.
> So I am leaning more and more to separate linux users.

No, that's _overkill_ for what you want.

Learn to use Thunderbird's Profiles, or some other "Internet
e-mail designed" application that does the same.  Someone
mentioned KMail here.

> After finding more gnome documentation, I see they call
> them workspaces.

Yes, I know.  Desktops, workspaces, viewports, etc...  In
old, original "virtual window manager" speak, it's the
"pager."  The idea that you can "page around" multiple areas
of the X session so it seems you have a much bigger desktop
than normal.

> Yes, I remember the flyer that was dropped around one of
> the ACM meetings when X came out.  Around '92 (or was it
'87)? 
> I wish I could find it again.  X use to be a real killer.
> But then we are not running the same Un*x on the same
> platforms, terminals, networks that we were then.

Who says?  The concepts are _exactly_ the _same_ today on
Linux!
Even games use OpenGL on X-Window (GLX) -- you can even run
the actual 3D computation on a back-end cluster, then render
on a _single_ 3D workstation with the card (and GLX
accelerating drivers).  nVidia even uses the same codebase
for both its Linux GLX and NT ICD (installable client driver)
OpenGL support, as well as for Apple's QuartzExtreme (OpenGL
framebuffer integrated windowing environment).

1984 c/o MIT and Digital (among others).  It was loosely
based on "w", which pre-dates even Apple's Lisa (circa 1982).
 But I won't go all the way back to the '60s on how the
original mouse had 3 buttons (let alone the original 1973
Xerox PARC window/mount environment had the same, etc...).

GNOME runs on X-Window version 11 (X11).  GNOME is a
combination of subsystems.  GLib uses the X libraries (Xlib).
 It's core widget set is the GIMP Toolkit Plus (GTK+), which
builds upon the X Tookit (Xt) included with X11.  Although
they have GTK+ that runs on framebuffer, I've yet to see a
full GNOME implementation that doesn't use Xlib, Xt, etc... 
GNOME then adds Pango (accessibility), Bonobo (CORBA object
framework -- loosely equivalent to MS COM+, only vastly
superior for networks although almost overkill**).

[ **NOTE:  The next-generation of GNOME is adopting the .NET
object framework, so objects and applications will be at
least source-code compatible with MS .NET, if not Common
Language Runtime (CLR) compatible.  The same people behind
the open Mono implementation were the same people who
designed GNOME -- and they work for Novell who purchased
Ximian. ]

Citrix began around '90 on OS/2.  The OS/2 kernel, unlike the
NT kernel (with its GDI requirement), could support multiple
sessions, and run a GUI atop of each session.  So Citrix
wanted to make a UNIX/X-Window like desktop system, with
Citrix terminals ("thin clients" as they are called today)
like X-Terminals (the original "thin client" a decade before
the term was coined ;-), etc...

But what really made Citrix was their NT 3.51 hack that
results in MetaFrame.  They virtualized the GDI so you didn't
need a physical video card/keyboard.  Every [true] Win32
application is built with the requirement of the GDI -- they
are always rooted to a physical video frame buffer (i.e.,
video card) and input.  A variant of it (long, long story)
became NT 4.0 Terminal Server.  The technology was called
"MultiWin" and it was integrated by default in NT 5.0+
(2000+) -- which is how you can do "Remote Administration"
(simultaneous -- but not slow, remote framebuffer unlike
pcAnywhere, VNC, etc...) as well as "Administrator only
Access" (2 user) as well as "Windows Terminal Server" (X
users).



-- 
Bryan J. Smith     Professional, Technical Annoyance                      b.j.smith at ieee.org      http://thebs413.blogspot.com
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*** Speed doesn't kill, difference in speed does ***