Baslinux mailing list

[cce.zizkov AT volny.cz]

Please, feel free to download mutt add-on for Basiclinux at: 

    http://www.volny.cz/cce.zizkov/download/mutt-bl2.tgz
    
or

    http://www.volny.cz/cce.zizkov/download/mutt-bl3.tgz

Regards,
Christof Lange

* * *


Mutt for BasicLinux
-------------------

Mutt is a highly customizable e-mail client that works well with
older hardware. It can be run in Linux console as well as in an
Xterm window. Besides ordinary reading and composing capabilities
the latest version of mutt is also able to access the mailbox on a
pop3 server online in the same way as one of its own mail folders.
This is a very comfortable way to delete spam and download only
those messages which you are interested in.

The add-on packets contain mutt 1.4.2.1 for BasicLinux 2 (mutt-
bl2.tgz) and 1.2.5.1i for BasicLinux 3 (mutt-bl3.tgz). The older
version unfortunately does not suppurt direct access to pop3 server.

I bundled Mutt with three small utilities catdoc, xls2csv and
html2text which quite reliably display the most frequent attachments
(html, rtf, doc, xcl). Mutt also supports different national
character sets. A few fonts and key maps for for West-European,
East-European and Russian languages are included in the package. 

1. Installation:

BL2: Untar mail-bl2.tgz to the root directory, if you want to
install mutt to the RAM version, you have to use the /tmp directory
and create symbolic links manually. BL3: Run 'pkg mail-bl3.tgz'  this
installs mutt into the BasicLinux file system. 

2. Configuration:

Run 'musetup' to configure your internet settings and to select a
(non=English) character set you want to use.

All mail folders and configuration files are stored in the directory
/root/Mail. 

3. Running the program

Start the program with the command 'mu'. You can send or receive
messages only while being online. When you are not connected to the
internet outgoing messages will be stored in the outbox file. You
can dial, hang up and call mail transport routines from within the
program or independently with pp-on, pp-off and pmail. The easiest
way is to use Fkeys in mutt (for information on function keys type
'?'). 

4. Customizing mutt 

After some time playing with mutt you may want to edit
~/root/Mail/.muttrc and ~/root/Mail/.macro to customize some
functions and change keyboard bindings.

5. Change fonts and character sets

The directory /usr/lib/kbd contains only a few fonts and keyboard
mappings for West European, Central European and Russian languages.
To change to a Czech-German or to a Russian phonetical keyboard use
the commands 'cz' or 'ru'. The easiest way to switch between
different fonts, keyboards and encodings is to use Fkeys (for
information on function keys type '?'). If you need support for
other languages use the commands sefont and loadkeys. Many other
fonts and keyboard mappings can be found in the Slackware
distribution (kbd.tgz).

6. Spam filters

There are two ways of implementing a spam filter: You can add filter
routines to ~/.pmailrc or to ~/Mail/.muttrc - for more information
read the man pages and sample configuration files.

7. Documentation

You find very detailed documentation and some sample files for
customization in /usr/doc/mutt and /usr/man. The mutt manual can
also be opened from the program with the F1 key.

* * *

Just a few words on the MIME plug-ins :
---------------------------------------

The packets I prepared are rather big (600 and 800 kB), mainly 
because of the plug-ins and required libraries. You will use those 
programs not only with mutt. 

As long as you have links on your system you actually will not need
a utility like 'htmltotext'. On the other hand it is nice to read
the html attachment automatically as a part of the message (lynx can
do this job, links cannot). If you use links to open html attachments 
you will be able to follow URLs in messages (while being online). 

If you use mc to view .rtf, .doc, .html, .pdf etc. files with
different plug-ins, you need not write all of them them again into
mutt's mailcap file, just specify 'mc -v' as a document viewer there.

If you specify catdoc and xls2csv top open .doc and .rtf
attachments, you should pay attention to the command line options
(catdoc' default code page is koi8-r).

Known problems: 
---------------

With my last compiles I cannot get colours in the xterm window. I do
not know why. May be this has something to do with the compile-time
alternative libncurses or libslang?

So far no pop3-server folders for BL3. Waiting for somebody who is 
able to compile Mutt-1.4 for BL3 environment. 



________________________________________________________________

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Prokopova 4/216, 130 00 Praha  3, Czech Republic
Tel. (+420) 222 78 06 73 / 222 78 20 02 / 603 18 87 53
http://www.volny.cz/cce.zizkov