"... Geek cred ..."
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| tqk Jun 20, 2007 2:22 PM EDT |
Gahd, I wish people would stop saying that, especially when they're not one. Anyone who can't even hit in mutt (see Sec. 12) and find it does indeed do IMAP, doesn't even begin to approach that level of sentience. Why don't these people ever bother to even try to read the manual? Oh, because (obviously, silly) you're going to have to be an ultra-uber-hacker to even stay awake reading it, much less get any useful information out of it. Sigh. TFA isn't really all that bad (I've seen much worse), but it's not actually saying anything interesting either. He prefers webmail. Yuck. I want my mail on my machine where I can back it up, not where some clueless ISP contractor can blow it away by pressing the wrong button. Not to mention, webmail is slooooooooooooooooooow! Sigh. |
| Steven_Rosenber Jun 20, 2007 2:57 PM EDT |
I got mutt to do both IMAP and POP. But comparing the configuration of mutt or pine to that of a standard GUI mail client -- it's like day and extremely geeky night. The man pages and official sites were little help. Instead, I cobbled together information from literally dozens of Web sites to get mail working at the command line. My hat is off to those who can build and maintain these complex, multi-program e-mail systems on their personal boxes, but it's just too complex and so very poorly documented that I can't recommend it to the non-geeky (or those who know the geeky). Believe me, if only uber-geeks could talk about being uber-geeks, NOBODY WOULD BE TALKING ABOUT THEM AT ALL. I know a geek-tastic computing task when I see one, and creating a complex command-line e-mail setup is probably job No. 1 in that department. If every e-mail provider offered support for the Linux command line, it would be much easier, but few do (and in the case of Fastmail.fm, its pine support didn't help me). |
| jdixon Jun 20, 2007 3:50 PM EDT |
If you like webmail, how about a webmail system that's completely under your control, rather than dependent on an external provider. Take a look at http://www.squirrelmail.org/ |
| tqk Jun 20, 2007 3:58 PM EDT |
> But comparing the configuration of mutt or pine to that of a standard GUI mail client -- it's like day and extremely geeky night. Hmm ... I may be over-stepping here. I thought ultra-uber-geek describes someone who comes up with mutt in the first place, or its maintainer. I'll agree, mutt's config can be challenging at times since there's so much that can be done with it, and everybody wants it to "do it" their way. Yes, the documentation can be less than illuminating in places (file a bug report). Google for Sven Gucke's (sp?) dotfiles, or troll the archives of mutt-user mailing list, or just hit F1 and try to make something of the docs. It isn't rocket science, and getting it to do something may take a few hours of reading, but what's wrong with that? You learn more about what's going on with every minute of study. If you want instant results, and don't much care what that consists of, GUIs can do that. If you want it to do "it" your way, well, that'll take a bit of research but that's not beyond the abilities of anyone who can and will read. This is extremely dated, but maybe it'll illuminate. I offered it to TLDP as a Howto, but they weren't interested: http://www.spots.ab.ca/20031208_heavy_mail.html I really need to go through this and fix a few things, but maybe it'll help to sort some things out. |
| Steven_Rosenber Jun 20, 2007 4:17 PM EDT |
The leap from "configure your GUI mail client" to "get fetchmail, postfix, procmail, mutt and sendmail to work together and look the way you want" is HUGE. Going from Microsoft Word to vi isn't as huge. I'm not saying it's not worth it -- command-line e-mail has many advantages, but I just wish there was a comprehensive reference (a book -- a book I'd pay for) explaining how to use all of the various mail programs in Linux, along with many detailed sample configuration files. I was able to use fetchmail, mutt and msmtp -- and while it took me two weeks, it was well worth the effort. But it still took two weeks, not two hours (or the two minutes it took me to get three accounts working in Thunderbird) On a scale of 1 to 10: Using Ubuntu's add/del program utility is a 1 Using Synaptic is a 2 Using apt is a 2 Figuring out how to burn an ISO disc is a 2 Installing a .deb package is a 2 Partitioning a drive to run multiple distros, installing those distros and configuring GRUB is a 4 Configuring a complete command-line e-mail solution with multiple accounts is probably a 6 or 7 I'll leave 8 through 10 for harder things I haven't yet tried to do I realize that for people who write code for a living, this is laughable, but I think the command line shouldn't just be for those I'll euphamistically call "geeks." Some of the great utilities out there -- like apt -- make using the command line extremely easy. It's probably easier to use apt than it is to find a Windows program, download, unzip and install it. I almost feel like I'm cheating when stuff is that easy. I didn't feel like I was cheating in any way when I started using mutt, fetchmail and msmtp. It's nice to have the power and configurability of these programs, but none of the command-line-oriented books I've seen go into enough detail on how to actually make e-mail work. |
| jezuch Jun 21, 2007 5:21 AM EDT |
And imagine that there was a time when the "command line" was the *only* interface available... |
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