Re: Starting to run Mutt
On Thu, 10 Jun 2004 21:20:07 -0600, Greg Kedrovsky wrote:
>First off: http://www.mutt.org/doc/manual/
>You don't have to read it word for word, but you should at least skim it
>to be aware of its contents. I printed a hardcopy, bound it and have it
>here with me. After skimming it, you'll remember stuff and be able to
>look it up later. That will save you a lot of frustration in the future.
I have read through the manual several times each times getting more out of it.
Not so easy to print a hardcopy as it's in html with no way of putting it in a
single ascii form.
I'll probably print out the text copy in Slackware to Windows.
>A good starter link: http://mutt.blackfish.org.uk/
>>That helped me out a lot.
Bookmarked. Thank you.
>On Thu, Jun 10, 2004 at 09:59:42PM -0500, Larry Alkoff wrote:
>> I'm just getting on changing from PMMail on Windows to Mutt on Slackware
>> Linux
>> and could use a little advice along the way.
>
>I like Slack. Got 9.1 running here on 2 or 3 machines.
Great. I also think Slack is terrific.
I've been running it 3-4 years starting at 8.0 and am just getting major
functions
like mail away from Windows.
>> Only fetchmail and procmail are running, not sendmail because it doesn't do
>> maildir format.
>> Right now fetchmail is set to KEEP so all messages are still intact on my
>> Windows program which I am replacing
>If you're not running sendmail, which MTA do you have running? Exim?
>QMail? You have to have something to move your mail around your machine
>and in and out of the net. ??
At the moment I'm interested in getting the reading part setup.
Later I'll compile the latest Postfix as that seems best for my needs.
If I have to do Postfix now it's really going to complicate things.
>> The user is lba and mail is going into /var/spool/mail/lba
>
>Standard.
>
>> I beleive Mutt is getting the mail from /var/spool/mail/lba
>> and I can read the messages in Mutt.
>
>Yep. That's where it's getting it from.
>
>> I will be using maildir not mbox format and want to move these messages into
>> ~/Mail/Inbox to test it out.
>> Later I would want to move the messages into ~/Mail/account1/Inbox and
>> ~/Mail/account2/Inbox.
>
>Mutt saves fine in maildir or mbox format. Not a problem.
I don't understand the "save" part in Mutt.
Doesn't the mail get automatically in the proper subdirectory by procmail?
If all the mail from the 3 accounts and numereous mail lists are going to start
in one big mish-mosh
in Mutt's index it's going to be very hard to sort them to where they should go.
I sincerely hope there is some way to do it programmatically.
Right now Mutt doesn't seem to be saving mail in any format.
Mutt was complaining that my ~/Mail/Inbox was "not a mailbox" but something I
did in the config files seems to have fixed that.
>> Right now there are no messages in either ~/Mail/lba/Inbox or
>> ~/Mail/lba/Spam which are the only maildir foldes I have set up as yet.
>> I think there is a pemission issue before the folders are recognized by Mutt
>> as valid maildir folders but I don't know the magic setting.
>
>Perms should be 700. Mine are 700 and work fine.
>chmod 700 ~/Mail/lba/Inbox
>That'd do it.
No problem - I'll do those perms.
>> My understanding is procmail should move the messages from
>> /var/spool/mail/lba into the various maildir folders.
>> But I'm not sure what to tell it.
>
>Your MTA should call procmail (if I'm not mistaken), and run your
>messages through your procmailrc recipes, dumping everything that passes
>through into your /var/spool mailbox.
There's the rub. Sendmail doesn't do maildir and I really need that.
My current mail is in maildir in Windows and I copied some old mail over from
the Windows machine
into ~/Mail/Inbox and could read it perfectly :-)
I'm on about 45 mailing lists and probably have 150 separate subdirectories in
3 mail accounts.
>Here is a great tutorial on procmail:
>http://www.ii.com/internet/robots/procmail/qs/
>Tutorials are good. Learn by doing.
Bookmarked also. Looks long and thorough. Will read this weekend.
>
>> ~/.procmailrc is from LinuxBrit with no changes as yet. I would like to
>> start with a really basic one and build from there.
>> ~/.muttrc is using mostly a few colorization lines and key settings and is
>> still pretty primitive.
>
>Start simple. Add things when you learn and understand them, or have
>time to play around and see how stuff works.
I started simple with .muttrc and that worked just fine.
Added things as I needed them.
Procmail seems a little harder and I don't understand it well enough (yet) to
even start.
That's why I just put in the LinuxBrit thing but it's way overkill for me at
this stage.
Would you suggest a few lines for a skeleton procmailrc?
>> I hope this is enough information to get some advice and push the project
>> further.
>
>One more: http://mark.stosberg.com/Tech/mutt.html
Already had that one. Good section on address book management.
I've already spent a lot of time on the web and got a bunch of urls.
It's a little hard since there are so many programs that have to work together
- Mutt, fetchmail,
procmail, sendmail or postfix, lbdb - sheesh.
PMMail (started in OS/2 then to Windows) does everything the above programs do
in one nice package.
I looked at a fair amount of Linux mail programs but haven't found anything
that I like as a Linux equivalent.
However I like the idea of Mutt being a cli program as I greatly prefer the
command line.
That's why I'm going through this pain.
>Good luck.
>-Greg
Thanks for your help Greg.
I'll be working on it.
I've found that when I ask questions on a mailing list it incents me to work
even harder
and find the answer before someone on the list gives it to me. Great fun.
And as you perhaps know, I wouldn't dare ask these questions on the Slackware
newsgroup
without very thorough research!
Thanks again, Larry Alkoff
Larry Alkoff N2LA - Austin TX