* Greg Freemyer
noatime is what breaks a mutt install with default config because it depends on atime being updated when a email is read.
Totally unrelated to noatime, the atime issue highlights that lots of tools break Mutt's assumption that atime newer than mtime means a file has been read.
But that broken assumption is a legacy problem the Mutt appears to have always had and it seems there are non-default config options that allow Mutt to quit using atime as a key flagging field. As yet I haven't seen any discussion of the work-around.
from: http://wiki.mutt.org/?MuttFaq/Folder <quote> Why are "new" flags of mbox folders wrong in folder-list view? As written in manual.txt, the flags are determined by comparing the timestamps of last access and modification. This can get messed up if the folders are "touched" by other programs than mutt, like "biff" or backup software. There is also some issue with the "noatime" flag for mounting filesystems (most often used on laptops). If "noatime" is activated, no timestamp is updated for the last folder access, i.e. Mutt cannot determine if the folder has received new mail since last visited. For mutt before version 1.5.15, you can recompile it with the --enable-buffy-size option to "configure"; for mutt 1.5.15 or later see the $check_mbox_size option. Mutt will then use the folder size instead of the access times. (This is only a workaround and might give suboptimal results; another option is to use the MaildirFormat.) </quote> and from: http://www.linuxfoundation.org/news-media/blogs/browse/2009/03/ssd%E2%80%99s... <quote> Personally, I don’t think relatime is worth it. There are other ways of working around the issue with mutt — for example, you can use Maildir-style mailboxes, or you can use mutt’s check_mbox_size option. If the goal is to reduce unnecessary disk writes, I would mount my file systems using noatime, and use other workarounds as necessary. Alternatively, you can use chattr +A to set the noatime flag on all files and directories where you don’t want noatime semantics, and then clear the flag for the Unix mbox files where you care about the atime updates. Since the noatime flag is inherited by default, you can get this behaviour by setting running chattr +A /mntpt right after the filesystem is first created and mounted; all files and directories created in that file system will have the noatime file inherited. </quote> -- Patrick Shanahan Plainfield, Indiana, USA HOG # US1244711 http://wahoo.no-ip.org Photo Album: http://wahoo.no-ip.org/gallery2 Registered Linux User #207535 @ http://counter.li.org -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org