Bug#796467: general: if user has mail then how do we tell them if in GUI mode?
On Fri, 21 Aug 2015 17:20:17 -0500 Richard Jasmin <frazzledjazz@gmail.com> wrote:
> telling user has mail is easy as pi in console mode and when using a server.
> But how do we tell the user they have mail without a configured mail client
> when under runlevel 5? The activation of X11 practically hides all console
> activity.
>
> We would need a UI tool to do this. We cannot assume use of neither gnome nor
> KDE. User may have MATE or other UI installed.We should make an app
> indicator(and mail viewer) as lite as possible.
>
> Also, when launching xterm or similar, user is never told if they have mail or
> not.This should be a more eay fix.Since xterm emulates a vterm/getty checking
> mail this way should never fail.
To a first approximation, for the majority of users, if they don't have
a mail client configured, they don't have mail. One of these days I'd
still like to get mail-transport-agent removed from "standard", to get
rid of one of the last listening services in a default install, as the
majority of users don't need it and those that do can easily install it.
That said, if you care about a local mail server, and you don't have a
local mail client configured, there are a few different tools to handle
that case, including variations on biff or services that use desktop
notifications. You could also configure a local mail client, since you
might want to read that mail once you know of its existence.
- Josh Triplett
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