Sorry for the length of this, but I suspect it is probably needed.

I have six PC's and laptops running Mint 8.3 or Debian 9.5. I have been running various distros since 1994 and slackware. So while I am no expert, I am not exactly a newbie. I love Linux and without question, (I am not a gamer and) for me it runs faster and demands less hardware resources than does Windows... plus it is stable (these days) and easier to maintain.

BUT, I have one PC left running Windows, (currently Win 10) and moving this last PC is a challenge. For years I just couldn't move it as all my 25+ years of business email was sitting in two PST files used the by MS Outlook code that comes with the business version of MS Office. I am retired now and there are options to 'read' PST files not part of a mail program. So I will reluctantly say goodbye to MS Office. WPS Office will allow me to read the DOCX files. (No, LibreOffice and OpenOffice have problems with some Word formatting including footnotes. Wish it were not the case, but it is.)

I have work-arounds for the loss of my Acrobat Pro X... but there is one thing I can't yet do on my preferred distro Debian 9.5 with xfce. And it has me stumped. But I need to explain something first.

I do not use cloud services. I have an android cellphone and Google does NOT see my contacts. My mail is routed through a mail server that runs on my LAN, so no service gets to scrape my mail. Same with my calendar. All my data runs on my platforms... no third party and that's the way I want to keep it.

On my Windows PC, I use a 'service' that provides a mini-exchange server and allows me to sync my local Outlook Contacts, Calendar and Notes to my Android phone via my in-house WiFi over the private IP. So every moment I am at home, my phone and PC are synced up. It's bidirectional, so if I add to Outlook the Android gets it and should I add to the Android when I am away, the PC gets it when I return. It's all in background and I just don't have to think about it.

I have looked and looked. I can find no product that will do this for me under Debian 9.5. There might be a program (Daemon Sync) that runs on Ubuntu, but it has gotten very bad reviews and absolutely doesn't even load on Debian. I am moving away from Mint as I found 19 to be a problem, and Debian is just faster than Ubuntu or Mint.

This is nuts. It isn't the fault of Android... I can do this connecting to Windows, so blaming Google makes no sense.

Have I missed something? Is there a way to do this?

I'm a huge Debian fan and long time Debian user, although I do not actually run any e-mail (or Exchange type) servers. So I can't recommend a specific replacement on Debian.

But I can say that if I were in your situation, I would continue to use Windows on that computer. I have one dual boot computer which still has Windows on it. In my case, I run tax return software on it, and I also use it sometimes for work when I need Windows. Doing it this way reduces my headaches and reduces my potential headaches. If Windows 10 were some nightmare to deal with, then maybe I'd change my mind. But since I don't use it for much, it just isn't a nightmare at all.

That said, maybe there is indeed a good product that will work on Debian in place of Exchange.

I think that basically, a lot of enterprises use Exchange. As such, it makes sense for Google to develop Android capabilities to sync up with Exchange. But conversely, there isn't really anything like Exchange in the *nix world. So even if Google wanted to support it... "it" doesn't really exist. We've got e-mail servers and stuff, of course, but no monolithic beast sinking its tentacles around everything to form a cohesive whole.

Your work situation reads a lot like mine. I had to keep windows (98) complete with BSOD intact for Electronic Hardware Diagnostics and even a bootable Dos for Eprom programming until I closed the Electronics business. The internet was gone from windows for years.

Nobody syncs your data privately imho. I imagine M$ is spying big time on windows 10. This is the Divine Right of that OS, because you gave it permission before installing it. I have a windows 10 VM, and I haven't even given it my name. It wakes up only when I allow it, it says "Hello, Tight Ass" I certainly wouldn't use M$ outlook if I wanted any privacy.

You have to give Android snooping rights likewise, and keep a gmail address for google play, and backups. Google boast about how much Android will spy on you, and you have to say 'yes.' So if you want private contacts, don't sync anything. Android synchs itself, updating to your google drive backup on the sly.

That calls out for a script to change your formatting once on the data, wherever you have it. Probably a python module or perl module exists, maybe even a utility. Synch by hand, and realise they have more data on you than they can use. If the Android contacts are good, Whatsapp web suggests itself, as you have the phone contacts, the pc interface, no internet required for a copy/paste job.

Just to keep things clear... in response to IsaacKuo's friendly reply:

My email server is running on a Linux server in-house. It is not "exchange." The mail client I use is as I mentioned a local Outlook client from the MS SME Office bundle. That Outlook client saves it's contacts, calendar, and notes to a PST file on my PC. The 'mini-exchange' service is just a shim that allows connection between the PC and the Android to share the data. It's all via private IP with password controls as well. So this is not big business model. This is a model of a retired guy who has been around IT for four decades and wants his privacy.

As to business_kid's comments,

I have no Whatsapp requests because neither Google nor FB have my contacts. My data is by design and allowed via the Android OS, synced back to my PC only. I have a google account on the cellphone checked the "mail" section of the google account. None of my contacts are there. I do not run FB messenger expressly because it does steal the contacts.

And MS stealing my contacts? Nah, they have plenty enough to steal from those using outlook.com and their cloud services. It gets back to the old joke about how much money does Bill Gates need to see on the sidewalk before it is worth his time to stop, bend over and pick it up?

Copy/Paste is not what I want. I want and actually need a seamless sync. I am a old dude. Do I always remember when I entered new data hours before on some device? No.

Clearly the Android OS allows for the account shim. So suggesting that Google is not going to allow it makes no sense. There are two companies that right now provide for personal PC Outlook clients to Android Syncing. We need the same thing on Linux. I want to get rid of Windows, but there remains a type of passive/aggressive knee-jerk reaction to the clear gaps in device to device connectivity that Linux really should excel at. [Mint 19 could no longer talk to my BT mouse. That is just nuts.]

Linux is IMHO an answer to the big companies who want to own your stuff, but then when there is a way to do it, we get complaints and comments about how it is a lost cause.

Hmmm , I'm not sure you read the stuff necessary to install that Android OS. I can't imagine any data tossed around by big companies not being accessible to the NSA. Google has shown the way to harvest customer data to sell targeted ads. If anyone who matters wants data, they get it. They even harvest your searches! Now to use google earth you need the Chrome spyware.

In answer to your problem, Slackware64 fairly quickly turns into a full 32/64 bit multilib system with 'compat32' installs courtesy of Alien Bob. Then you can install 32/64 bit wine, keep[ M$ Outlook and get on with life. And don't say 'I'm old.' If you're pushing 100, maybe. I'm 65, I'm decrepit (stroke & badly broken hip) but I'm not old. As Groucho said:
Or Ashleigh Brilliant:

business_kid,

I am not wanting or needing a pissing contest with you about what I know and how you know better about big brother, Google and the Android OS. And yes I am aware that if I didn't use StartPage, big brother would be harvesting my searches.

Wine does not work for me. I have it, and it frankly is pretty pathetic plus I can't run the mini-exchange app under it that I can run under Windows.

You may well be a guru here... and for some reason all my previous posts and activity here seems to have been wiped out as if I was never here, though I have been since 2013... but I was running Slackware servers on 1994 for our name services, email servers, Usenet servers, FTP and websites. (Prior to that I was supporting assisting in the support on a Sun OS server.)

Those Slackware servers were CLI only. I changed to Debian in 1998 and have run Debian since Debian 2 was announced also only CLI. They were my server solutions. I didn't start desktop GUI use until 2007 but decided Debian 4 just wasn't cutting it. I eventually tried Mint and stayed with Mint as a desktop for my notebooks quite a while. And I am also late to the party on Android having been a Blackberry user until Blackberry stopped all support in Asia. My Blackberry was tied it to our company's email servers (of which I was the admin), not a third party service... So maybe you are used to flashing your 'I know better' way around. But it really doesn't help or impress me.

What I am asking about is if anyone here knows of a way to get what I need done between Linux and Android. If you don't, have the grace to say so and move on please. I am sure you are a bright and knowledgeable guy. You just seem to have taken a wrong turn in your discussion here.

And that gets down to the core of it. IMHO we need native solutions, not Windows kludges or excuses.

Thanks for that clarification. I didn't understand precisely what you meant by "mini-exchange" but this clarification helps me get it.

So here's the thing. Because Exchange exists, there's a de facto standard for storing contacts and a de facto standard way to communicate it to client software.

But there's no equivalent of this in the *nix world. We could wish there were, but there isn't. Since there's no true Exchange equivalent in *nix, there's no way to make a "mini-Exchange" based on it.

I did a bit of searching around for methods to sync up contacts with Mozilla Thunderbird, but the only elegant solution seems to be syncing with Google contacts. I think Thunderbird is the most popular *nix e-mail client (with contact list support)...so if there's no solution for this in Thunderbird then I think there just isn't one.

That said, it might be possible to hack together a working solution with rsync and shell scripts or something. Searching around, I don't see any obvious location (using gmtp) where a contacts file might be, but maybe it's just a matter of looking more doggedly for the desired info.

OK, I'll leave it out. Wine is OK, but it has dependencies. My Guru status totally overrates me. I, too, looked at banning both windows 10 & Android from spying on me, but found I had to agree to it in the install stages. I don't have the energy any more to fight them off.
Slamd64 & Fred Emmot mastered the 32/64 multilib thing, and Alien Bob has taken that up.

I did discover protonmail, theema & mega.nz, mail, messaging & file server respectively which are truly private. I also downloaded the 'Heads' linux distro today. It claims to be similar to tails, but that tails uses proprietary software, and they want to analyze the source.

IsaacKuo,

You said:
OK, I see your point, but there was/is in the Unix world.

It is Groupwise. Why couldn't we use a heavily modified version of that database design and sharing hooks as a information sharing standard in the *nix world. It wouldn't be compatible with the [was WordPerfect and the Novell] Micro Focus product, but it would give us an open source platform that could provide a standardized database format for messaging that Thunderbird and other email clients could adopt as a user option in lieu of the clients native data format. And it would provide for new innovative ways to make the *nix world more robust.

Whether we use a Groupwise design or something else, a Linux standard for messaging/calendering/notes/tasks/contacts that any Linux client app could adopt is something that is long overdue. I am not saying that anyone must adopt such a standard, but there needs to be one.

You mean like CalDAV/CardDAV ?
I thought Groupwise supported that but TBH i haven’t lloked at it closely.

We use Nextcloud to sync contacts/calendars with android/iphone/thunderbird/outlook as well as file sharing/sync.

For your emails, if you already have a local server, just create an imap account and copy/move all your Outlook mail into it.

1 members found this post helpful.

I need to sync: contacts; tasks; calendars; notes.

I will look at Nextcloud, but notes and tasks are very much needed.

Yes I am not as much concerned about the email itself. I do see Outlook, which I use now, as a productivity suite. I frequently take notes and need them to sync.

My mail server SurgeMail does have a CalDAV but not a CardDAV function but not to sync with Android. It's for group calendering within the product.

Tasks are handled by CalDAV as well.
There is a Notes plugin for Nextcloud but I havent used it.
I would be surprised if it worked with Outlook (but I thought you were trying to move away from that?).

I am moving away from Outlook and Windows. I need to do this on native Linux and native Android applications. The question is how to I sync both Linux and Android Apps to it... More research I guess. Thanks for the suggestion.

Davdroid for android.
Tbird calendar does CalDAV natively and there is a few CardDAV plugins to choose from (can’t recall and not in front of it atm).

I am on the NextCloud site. I see no problem with the in-house server specs, and it looks like it's all there. More than I need, in truth, but I suspect that there is nothing missing. While I could deploy it on my mail server, I think I will setup a separate server for this. I see nothing in the Linux server setup that raises any flags.