On Wed, 13 Mar 2002, exim wrote:
> I am currently a big Microsoft User. I use Windows 2000 and Exchange
> 2000. I want to start learning Linux. I am going to need an email system
> that is comparable to Microsoft Exchange. Does EXIM compare? If so, how
> does it compare? Is it better, or just as good or worse? How hard is it
> to set up EXIM? What versions of Linux does it run best on? Is it
> difficult to learn EXIM? Thanks for the help!
[Not wanting to start a holy war, here!]
The biggest difference between the two is that Exim is just the MTA part
of the mail system - it just handles the SMTP part and delivering into
mailboxes (most of the time; this is configurable).
Exim does NOT provide a POP or IMAP service, does not do calendaring,
handle public folders [to use an Exchange phrase] directly, etc. You will
need other programs (which are also downloadable) to fulfill these roles.
It really depends on what features of Exchange you use - if it's just
sending/receiving email, reading it with POP/IMAP, etc. you will need Exim
and a POP+IMAP service. If you're using all the Exchange jiggery pokery,
you'll need to investigate other programs (which many other people can
advise about).
Personally, I much prefer running Exim as I find it easier to understand,
resolve problems and predict its behaviour (Exchange often does odd
things, breaks things, etc. without warning or reason). However, the
argument from some people about having Outlook on their desktop and using
all the special features of this means you will need more than just
Exim+POP+IMAP.
[We had one problem where someone sent >17,000 emails erroneously last
week and I had to remove them from the queue. This was a trivial problem
with Exim - identifying them and using 'exim -Mrm' or removing the queue
files. Using Exchange's "Message Tracking Center" and queue viewing tool,
which will only show you the first 100 messages in the queue to solve this
problem doesn't even bear thinking about.]
- Bob
--
Bob Franklin <r.c.franklin@???> +44 (0)118 931 6630
Systems and Communications, IT Services, The University of Reading, UK
