[H-GEN] Evolution or Thunderbird or what?

[Greg Black]

I am responsible for a user community which has been using exmh
as their MUA for a decade or more.  It's now time to move them
to something new, chiefly because they need a tool that groks
IMAP and, to a lesser extent, because GUI stuff based on Tk is
getting a bit ugly.  These users are not, in any way, geeks;
they are office workers and professionals who simple want to use
their computers, not to understand them or have to fiddle with
them.

I, on the other hand, am a geek and I use mutt; so I have no
experience with modern GUI-based MUAs.

I'm aware of Evolution and Thunderbird and imagine that one of
them is probably the way to go, but I'm happy to entertain other
possibilities.  What we need is something that runs with a
modern GUI look and feel, that's easy to use, that does both
imap and imaps, that has a good reputation for stability, that
plays nicely with gnome, and that provides some usable address
book capability (for both email addresses and street addresses
and phone numbers).

I'd like to hear from people who have relevant experience with
any such MUA, both good and bad, as a user or a sysadmin.

I've directed replies at myself and would appreciate it if
people honoured that.  I'm also happy to hear responses on the
#humbug IRC channel.  Once I've gathered all the information, I
will post a summary here for the benefit of anybody who might
also be interested.

Cheers, Greg