* On 29 Jan 2015, Conor Cook wrote: > Dear David, > > Thank you. I did attempt to rebuild from the source, although I am > having trouble with the links at the mutt.org website. Neither of the > mutt-1.x.tar.gz links will load, and at sourceforge I can only find > the dev or 1.4.2.2i versions. I tried to build both the dev version
Hmm, it looks like ftp.mutt.org is down. Steve, is that your turf? Conor, your best bet is this: https://bitbucket.org/mutt/mutt/downloads/mutt-1.5.23.tar.gz The 1.4 releases are terribly old (and what to do about versions is a current topic of discussion for us). You should use 1.5's latest release; even though it's badged "development" it's generally quite stable and far more featureful than 1.4. In particular the IMAP support in 1.4 is much weaker than 1.5's. With your old copy of mutt, run "mutt -v". This should tell you something about how your old copy was compiled, which may be useful in deciding how to configure the source tree. Recent versions of mutt have a "Configure options:" line that gives the exact arguments to ./configure that were used during the build. You can just add "--enable-imap --enable-pop" to that to configure a new source tree the same way, but with IMAP and POP support. I noticed you said you'd tried the dev version, so maybe all this is redundant. But when you're at the computer, copy your configure/compile log on pastebin.com and post the link here. Someone may be able to help. > Basic question, is there any reason for a novice computer-er like me > to use mutt beyond the novelty of emailing in Terminal, or am I in > over my head with mail servers and the like? This is a good question, really. I can't answer it but I can tell you how I and others answer it for ourselves. Mutt diehards usually find that mutt gives us the control we want to manage mail more effectively and efficiently than most or any graphical app allows. Not everyone feels this way, and there are dozens of reasons that we individually prefer mutt. I don't think that a text-mode mailer is particularly something to aspire to unless you have specific needs that are unmet by your current mail tools. In that case, mutt can give you a lot of flexibility in how you address the issue. I've been using mutt daily for.. I guess about 18 years now. I lead an email-centric life, so it's pretty important to me that I be able to handle email painlessly. Before mutt I was routinely frustrated by my mail applications, and always looking for some other way. Mutt is imperfect, but the number of times in those 18 years that I've been genuinely upset by something relating to mail handling is low -- less than once per year, I'd guess. And when I do have a problem: (a) there's a very helpful community willing to share or create solutions, and (b) as a programmer, I can often solve it by improving the software for everyone. This kind of support is really hard to get with desktop mail apps -- but fundamentally, if you're happy with what you have, don't fight it. :) It also presents an enormus learning opportunity, if you think that knowledge of mail service is potentially valuable. > Thank you all for your hard work keeping this sort of project going. > I follow other open source communities, as well, and the work that all > of you do is both amazing and exciting! Thanks! -- David Champion • [email protected]
