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Re: Mutt strating up.



Toby wrote:

Erik Jakobsen wrote:
Starting at the user prompt with just mutt gave this at the bottom of the mutt window:

/var/mail/erikja is not a mailbox.
What do I have to do then ?


Ok, where is your mail?
Well, I have used Mozilla and Thunderbird, and then the mails are there:


erikja@lajka3:~> ls -al .mozilla/
total 23
drwxr-xr-x   4 erikja users   184 2005-03-29 12:26 .
drwxr-xr-x  61 erikja users  3336 2005-04-07 16:21 ..
-rwxr-xr-x   1 erikja users  1044 2005-03-28 19:44 appreg
drwxr-xr-x   3 erikja users    80 2005-03-22 10:38 default
drwxr-xr-x   3 erikja users   144 2005-03-27 16:27 firefox
-rw-r--r--   1 erikja users  1074 2005-03-24 17:19 mozver.dat
-rwxr-xr-x   1 erikja users 10880 2005-03-30 21:27 pluginreg.dat
erikja@lajka3:~> mc

erikja@lajka3:~> ls -al .thunderbird/
total 12
drwxr-xr-x   3 erikja users  136 2005-03-28 20:09 .
drwxr-xr-x  61 erikja users 3336 2005-04-07 16:21 ..
-rw-r--r--   1 erikja users  335 2005-03-28 20:09 appreg
drwx------   7 erikja users  856 2005-04-07 14:08 clulcke6.default
-rw-r--r--   1 erikja users  104 2005-04-07 14:53 profiles.ini

As MTA I use Postfix.

Mutt's default configuration expects to find your mail in
/var/mail/<username> but this is obviously not your case*.

I have that path:

erikja@lajka3:/> ls -al /var/mail/erikja/
total 0
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root 48 2005-03-31 13:36 .
drwxrwxrwt  3 root root 72 2005-03-31 13:36 ..

Perhaps its a matter of permission ?. I can see, that its root:root that has the owenership.

ls -al /var/

lrwxrwxrwx   1 root  root    10 2005-03-22 08:57 mail -> spool/mail

erikja@lajka3:/> ls -al /var/mail
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root 10 2005-03-22 08:57 /var/mail -> spool/mail

erikja@lajka3:/> ls -al /var/mail/erikja/
total 0
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root 48 2005-03-31 13:36 .
drwxrwxrwt  3 root root 72 2005-03-31 13:36 ..
erikja@lajka3:/> cd ..



If you need to get your mail from a provider, using POP3 for example,
you have 2 options:

In one case I need to get my mail from my provider. Else I have my own server here,
and have mails from this one too.

1. Most common solution: configure the "fetchmail" program to download
  your mail automatically from POP3 servers every x minutes, storing it
  into /var/mail/<username> where mutt can find it.

I'm not very familiar with fetchmail.

2. Seldom used, slower but possibly simpler solution: do without
  fetchmail, instead have mutt download your mail when you open it.
  In this case you will need to put a few lines in .muttrc containing
  your pop3 server, username and maybe password.

Maybe that's eaiser.

For solution #1 (which I suggest) you should read some introductory
material to fetchmail: after you have fetchmail running, mutt will find
the downloaded mail automatically.

Ok, I will read about fetchmail.

For solution #2, see Mutt's manual §4.11 and §6.3.200 to 208.

Ok, but what's the URL ?.

Toby

*: To be precise mutt by default expects to find mail in the place
specified in the environment variable $MAIL

Where can I find where its specified ?.


Thanks very much Toby for your explanation

Erik