[svlug] My escape from Kmail is featured in the 2/2012 issue of Linux Productivity Magazine

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Raj Shekhar (rajlist at rajshekhar.net):

> Kudos on not just succumbing and putting your email on gmail.  This blog
> post from Herald Welte sums up what I feel about people who host their
> own site, but not their own
> email. <http://laforge.gnumonks.org/weblog/2011/06/11/#20110611-gmail_and_co>

Running your own MTA is not that difficult.  (Steve Litt's gibe
notwithstanding, there are MTAs other than Sendmail.)  As I said, the
extra hurdle in 2012, that was not present when I and innumerable other
people, unaware that we weren't supposed to be able to do it, did it
with no difficulty whatsoever in earlier decades, is antispam.

You can put up a spare machine with distro-default configuration of
Apache httpd on a static IP, and, voila!  You have a perfectly
functional Web server with no significant problems.  By contrast,
distro-default MTA packages... sure, they work fine:  On a Debian box
with static IP[1], you answer a couple of questions to create Exim4's
initial configuration, and it works, _but_ then the continual barrage of
spam starts.  Thus, in 2012, running your own full-service MTA requires 
more work than the 'forehead install' beloved of Linux tirekickers (keep
hitting the spacebar with your forehead until package installation
completes, then congratulate yourself on being an AW3SUM H4XX0R D00D
who's able to run Linux).

So, you have to tinker a bit to make your MTA smarter than it comes out
of the box -- but it's still just not particularly difficult.

Longtime SVLUG member Karsten Self looked around a few years ago and
found the _true_ lazy-man's alternative to running an MTA.  He's now
reachable at karsten at linuxmafia.com .  ;->


[1] DynDNS fans will object to that static-IP qualifier.  To them, I say
'Good luck!'