Sharing my mail with my laptop

[Les Mikesell]

Chris Kottaridis wrote:
> 
> I seem to be missing something on how to set things up so I can peruse
> my email, and control various folders, from either my desktop or my
> laptop. Any pointers on how I get started would be great. I am more then
> happy to make my desktop my mail server, since the FreeBSD server is
> getting a bit old and I'd like to upgrade it anyway so it's not a
> problem for me to just move the mail service to my desktop if that makes
> things easier. I don't care so much if my existing email folders are not
> accessible by my laptop I just want to start making new messages
> available to both from here forward.
> 
> Any pointers to how I get imap setup so I can access my folders from
> two, or more, different machines ?

If you want to replace the FreeBSD box with a 'server appliance' that 
will work as an internet gateway, web/ftp/samba/email server (and 
probably a few other things but not desktop apps), look at SME server 
from http://www.contribs.org.  It will come up with a working pop/imap 
and webmail server that you can use from your laptop or other client 
boxes.  You can set up the same programs on other distros, but none are 
as easy to install or maintain.  As for your existing mail, if you can 
download via POP to a mail client program that understands both POP and 
IMAP, you will subsequently be able to drag anything you want to keep 
back into IMAP folders on the new server.

-- 
   Les Mikesell
    lesmikesell at gmail.com