Have a look at Pegasus Mail. I haven't used it in a while, but I think it will do what you are asking, and I remember that can be set to read but not delete the mail on the POP server.

It looks like OE has an option to leave a copy of the e-mail on the server. Does it realize that it's pulled it, however? Because, say, if I don't manually delete the e-mail from the server, will it pull the entire inbox down every time it checks?

I've just never used POP before, so I don't know...how to use it.

No, it knows what it's grabbed. Otherwise it'd be no use.

For dog's sake, P-C, stop using OE for email. Irrespective of how many updates and new security features it has, it is still the worst offender for spreading worms and virii. Opera isn't just for web browsing, it also has an email client amd usenet client builtin. Alternatively, there is the aforementioned Eudora, or Pegasus. There's also Mozilla Thunderbird, and you can still find a copy of Calypso floating around the net. The latter is the program I'm constantly hawking b/c I've been using it since 1998 and have never had any problems with it whatsoever. The program creators stopped developing it and put it on the net for free, and while it might be a few years old, it will do everything you want it to do ... namely, send and receive text email (or HTML if you must use it but I believe that type of email is abhorrent and should be banned). It also lets you choose between IMAP or POP3, can handle multiple accounts, and can let you choose to download and delete the message from the server, or download and leave the msg on the server.

Or, you could set your gmail account to automatically forward to your comcast account. Then, when you switch ISPs (if), you could just change your gmail accunt to automatically forward to that.

It will basically be exactly the same effect as using POP with deletion, though. Really, POP w/o deletion seems your best choice. There's a reason most people don't bother to use IMAP and it's because it's only very slightly better with much more overhead.

I use gmail popmail with Thunderbird mostly as an archiver. Every once in a while I fire up thunderbird and tell it to get all the new popmail since the last time.

There's a reason most people don't bother to use IMAP and it's because it's only very slightly better with much more overhead.

Really? What sort of overhead? It's seemed pretty fabulous and simple.

What's the closest thing to iTunes for Linux? Or some MP3 player that's seriously idiot-proof?

XMMS is very much like Winamp and I had no problems with it.

Banshee is a good Linux MP3 player for GNOME integration, the one I use.

Amarok is the primary KDE MP3 player.

Beep Media Player is another popular one and based on XMMS.