[Evolution] alert of new email while evolution is not started

[ito <egunther warwick net>]

Hi, 

I've been wondering about this for a while...

Does evolution have to be open/running for email alerts to occur?  I
realize that evolution is effectively a mail receiver/sender but is
there a daemon or something that just checks for mail?  Or is there a
way to interface the mail programs on the linux command line with
evolution, like mail or some other program that is already checking for
mail?

Hope this is not a stupid question.

Thanks,

eg