I have successfully reduced my dependence on my Windows box even further. Have installed PostCastServer for SMTP and MailGate for POP3. Now I can send and receive emails directly from my Linux box. Actually, MailGate can do SMTP as well, but I kept getting 10054 errors, so gave up on this.

Add this to ProxyPlus, and I have all the protocols covered :-)

Had I been able to move my DSL connection to Linux, all this would have been unnecessary. Still no replies to my post at LinuxQuestions regarding this.