This is a pretty easy step by step walk through. As always I take no responsibility for damage.

What you need:

1. A Supported Operating System: for example: Windows or Linux (if The macintosh is supported please leave a comment),
2. The Thunderbird Application: http://getthunderbird.com
3. Enough room on your hard drive.

The steps to an open source email client:

1. Have a supported operating system running on your computer.
2. Download the application from the site above.
3. run installer application.
4. after Thunderbird is installed, run the application.
5. Account Wizard will show up on top of the application.
6. Click on the radio button “Gmail”.
7. Click “next”.
8. The Account Wizard brings up the identity form.
9. Put in your credential: Your Name and your email address.
10. Click Next.
11. Click Finish.
12. Your Done!

My email address will be up in my About Me Page