Re: email

[Mark Phillips <mark@ist.flinders.edu.au>]

> Well I have decided to stick with Debian.

Wise choice.

> I still don't have X-windows.  I do have my mouse working
> now:)

So did you confirm it is a PS/2 mouse, using /dev/psaux?

> solution:  "Do 'adduser user_name dip' but got "The command adduser does
> not exist."

Have you installed the "adduser" package?

Do a
	dpkg --status adduser
to see if you have or not.  If you haven't, then install it.

The other command you might find very useful is
	locate adduser
which will find all files with the "adduser" in the name.  Well actually,
the database that "locate" uses is only updated daily so it won't find
stuff which is very recent.  (If you want to update the database 
immediately you can do "/etc/cron.daily/find" but it takes a while and
normally the automatic daily update is good enough.)


> I also can't figure out how to bring up "Mailx."  Under
> dselect it says it is installed but when I type in mailx nothing
> happens.

I'm not sure what Mailx is - I haven't ever used it.

> I have the latest Debian what is the easiest
> way  or programs to use, in order to use email?  

I would recommend exim as your mail transport agent.  It is relatively
easy to configure and maintain - and has quite good documentation.
Exim is used to replace sendmail (or smail).

To read your email I would recommend exmh (and install the nmh package
as well).  Exmh is a graphical email browser which works quite well.
I am writing this email using it.

Woopse, to use exmh, you need to have X up and running.  Use pine or elm
for console email, and then when you have X running, use exmh.

> I also can't figure out
> how to find clear documentation on my system.

There are a range of different sources for documentation.

The directory /usr/doc is an important one - it contails all sorts of
documentation for different packages on the system, as well as FAQs
and HOWTOs.

Are you familiar with unix?  Do you know about the "man" command.  If not,
do "man man" (man stands for manual).

There is also a lot of documentation in "info" files.  When you have
X up and running, install "tkinfo".

> outlined in a book I have, using "ghostscript" and "zcat", using either
> one I get "Command doesn't exist."

gs is provided by either the package "gs" or the package "gs-aladdin".
zcat is provided by the package "gzip".

Check that these are installed.  If you want to look at postscript files,
the program "gv" is best - again, get X working first.  If you want
to read ".gz" files, then use "zless".

  I put in "cd HOWTO" and then "ls" I
> can see a "mail-HOWTO.gz" but can't figure out how to read it.  Could
> someone point the way as to how to read files on my system?

As I said above, make sure the "gzip" package is installed, then type
	zless mail-HOWTO.gz
in the correct directory.

Hope this helps,

Mark.



_/~~~~~~~~\___/~~~~~~\____________________________________________________
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____/~~\_____/~~\________________________________mark@ist.flinders.edu.au_
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        "They told me I was gullible ... and I believed them!"