Re: More Net difficulties
On Fri, Jul 16, 1999 at 10:37:27AM -0400, Sera Hill wrote:
> I'm trying to use any kind of txt-based one, preferrably the easiest. John
> Foster reccomended that I use exim (previously),
Exim is a fine program but it's not a mail reader.
> I can't understand 1/2 the
> stuff the config file asks me for. I was looking at the man pages and they
> weren't really helping (perhaps a closer look is in order).
Like most things in Debian, the questions may be complex but the defaults
are almost always correct. Just hit enter.
> But it doesn't
> make sense that the mail prg wouldn't ask for a pop3 account/info.
I think a quick overview of how e-mail works is in order. When you send a
message, it is sent or passed to an MTA (Mail Transport Agent) such as Exim
or Sendmail. The MTA then sends the message to another MTA, probably the
one running at the ISP of the recipient. That MTA deposits the message in
the mail spool where the POP server (such as Qpopper), also running on that
machine, can find it. The recipient then either telnets in to their ISP's
machine to read the message with a mail reader or uses a mail retrieval
program to bring the message into their own computer's mail spool. The
user's mail reader then simply reads the messages from the local mail spool.
Some mail readers have their own mail fetching utilities built in but many
Linux users use a seperate program such as Fetchmail bring mail into their
local mail spool.
Some mail reader programs available with Debian are:
Tkmail
XFmail
Netscape's mail reader
Mutt
Elm
Pine (you need to compile this one due to licensing issues.)
--
Ray
>
> -Sera
>
>
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