Help Me To Get More Linux In My Life!

Operating Systems & Open Source Open Source & Web-Based
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So I've been trying my best to use linux as much as possible over the last 6 months or so and about a month ago I bought a 2TB WD Drive and added it to my desktop at home and started duel booting Windows 10 Pro and Ubuntu Gnome.
I've played around with it (I'm booted into it now as I'm typing this) and I like it so far but I haven't been taking it super seriously.
Today I installed Thunderbird with the intention of managing all of my email accounts with it and I discovered that Thunderbird doesn't support exchange-based email like Outlook or 365 online (I have the later provided to me by Godaddy).

Now I'm sure there will be a way to get this working on either Thunderbird or another mail client on linux.. but that's not really my point. My point is this; Why on earth am I still using 365!?

So... allow me to arrive at the point of this post; I don't have the money to go out and build the NAS machine/or any other machine that I want right now, but I do have a rack-mounted machine at home running VMware ESXi 5.5 and the following hardware;
FX8150
Asus Sabertooth 990FX
Intel Gigabit PCIe NIC
1TB HDD
16GB DDR3
500W PSU

This machine is doing literally nothing right now....

I'd like suggestions of what you guys and gals think I should do with this machine to introduce more Linux, and remove some Microsoft/Google from my life.

Also here is some used hardware that I just have lying around the house doing nothing right now;
2 x Samsung 160GB 7200rpm SATA HDD's
2 x Seagate Barracuda 400GB 7200rpm SATA HDD's
2 x 40GB 5400rpm IDE HDD's
HP NC110T PCI Gigabit NIC
MSI 990FXA-GD95 AM3+ MoBo
Corsair HX650 PSU
Inno3D Geforce 8800 GTS (would be a coaster by now if it didn't have an ugly a/f green PCB.

p.s. I am aware that it is not recommended to run FreeNAS in a virtual environment which is why this machine isn't already a NAS. (I've always thought that the vmware license is worth too much to just ditch it and use this machine for the hardware alone but I'm open to suggestions!)

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There maybe some other Linux based nas os's out there that can operate within a VM without issue if you want to research that. Also, I believe Mozilla made a statement last year saying that they would no longer be supporting Thunderbird in order to focus more on FireFox development. The article I read on techcrunch stated that it hasn't really been updated since 2012 anyway.

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Interesting. I'll have a look in to other mail clients for Linux then. Thanks!

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here is a top five of email clients for Linux

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I'm running a Fedora 23 spin so it includes the Evolution client, which is 3rd on the list in the link that @shadowvengence22 provided. I don't really use it but you could give it a try. It should support Exchange server.

You might want to try Open Media Vault in a VM on your ESXi machine. It's Debian based. I haven't used it though since I have a dedicated FreeNAS box.

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Thanks I'll check those out.

Will take a look at that for sure. Ultimately a dedicated FreeNAS machine is where I want to get to to be honest.

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Here is another alternative to freenas that I ran into a while back I haven't tried it but it looks interesting.

http://rockstor.com/

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That is not entirely accurate. What the want to do is to make Thunderbird a separate project independent of Mozzila. There is a good chance that Thunderbird will continue just under different community management and leadership.

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The Evolution Client is a very good one in my opinion, I use it currently on Fedora 23.

Thats a good set of Hardware that can run Linux great. You'll have a harder time trying to figure out what you want, vs What Linux can do on it.

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If you want microsoft exchange mail on thunderbird you need an extension called ExQuilla. You get a 60 day trial period, and after that it costs $10 per year. There is also domain licensing, you can read more on the licensing here. I've used it for a year for my student mail, and it does as advertised.

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