-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 The Wednesday 2006-01-25 at 16:40 +0700, C. Brouerius van Nidek wrote:
Read the thread and have a question. Could somebody put together what the different mail-delivery system do and don't. E.g. if I use Kmail, does this use other agents too? When I use fetchmail which is offered at instalation time in 9.3 to get the mail, does that conflict with Kmail?
Kmail, the same as mozilla or evolution, are designed in the "windows" or "outlook" style of doing everything. They are "users" programs. They download the email from remote (or local) servers, from one or several accounts, filter, store, display it, handle answering, and finally, delivery to the outgoing remote smtp server (or local). They don't require postfix, procmail, fetchmail, whatever: they are stand alone programs. Traditionally, though, things in *nix were handled diferently. An MTA server (sendmail, postfix, qmail, whatever) handled talking with other machines "out there". MUAs (mail user agents) simply handled display and composing email, delivery was handled to the MTA. The MTA was configured by the administrator, and you had only one email address. Users really did not need to configure email.
Are other agents like sendmail and procmail necessary and where do they play a role?
Sendmail does the same as postfix, it is an MTA. Choose one you like. Default in SuSE nowdays is postfix. Procmail is an "add on" to the MTA to handle local delivery, providing extra features like filtering or distributing email in different folders, if the user wants. It is very usefull, but not necesary.
What does Pine do that others don't?
It is a "traditional" style of user mail agent - thus, it can read _system_ email without configuration. Kmail, on the other hand, has to be told to also read system email. I mentioned Pine as an easy method of seeing those seemingly lost emails you had - not that I recomend you use Pine for al your email. I like it, but it is not for everybody.
I find the whole complex of mail delivery complex.
It is not. Go one step at a time. :-) There is a good chapter about all this in the SuSE (paper) book.
Which mail-delivery agent is best for dialup (e.g. every hour) and what would be best for ADSL or cable?
Doesn't matter, any. If you tell kmail to send email to the local Mail Transfer Agent (MTA), ie, the local SMTP server, this will send email outside when it has a chance. There are tricks to remind them to send, when using dial up, but I don't configure postfix nor sendmail diferently. Instead, you can tell kmail (or mozillla, or whatever you use) to send to your provider SMTP server. This method usually sends when you tell them to send, or asap, or later - same as outlook. I would recomed you use this method. - -- Cheers, Carlos Robinson -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.0 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Made with pgp4pine 1.76 iD8DBQFD15iytTMYHG2NR9URAjRHAJ4+IHA3etUgYkkZVfayGmtWChOBbACfZ9uw 3OscA8CLdO6YsR9ZT3YoIEI= =Mcyn -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----