Re: Multi-boot and Mutt
2. Is it possible to write a single .muttrc that I can copy to the three home directories that can determine the folder path based on the current OS? That is, the common mail folder is called /Volumes/Common/Mail in OS X, D:/Common/Mail in Windows, and /Common/Mail in Linux. Or do I just have to have three separate .muttrc files and manually coordinate them? (I've never actually used the Windows version of Mutt, so I'm guessing at the path format.) Sure. I've never used win32 mutt either, but presumably you can use it as part of a full mingw32/cygwin environment to get scripting tools. Behold this command: source ~/bin/muttrc.sh | One can also use backtics in a muttrc to surround a snippet of shell script, thereby avoiding the need for keeping another shell script file laying round (in three places, no less): source `some-conditional-here` --Jack
Re: Multi-boot and Mutt
On Sat, Jul 28, 2012 at 22:10:04 -0600, Daryl Lee wrote: 2. Is it possible to write a single .muttrc that I can copy to the three home directories that can determine the folder path based on the current OS? That is, the common mail folder is called /Volumes/Common/Mail in OS X, D:/Common/Mail in Windows, and /Common/Mail in Linux. Or do I just have to have three separate .muttrc files and manually coordinate them? (I've never actually used the Windows version of Mutt, so I'm guessing at the path format.) Another approach might be to have three short stub .muttrc files in the home directories, each of which would do a few lines of OS-specific config, and then use the source command to include a file stored on your /Common partition containing all your common configuration. (That would avoid the need to copy a file to back to each of the home directories each time you wanted to change some aspect of the common configuration.) Nathan
Re: Multi-boot and Mutt
On Sunday, July 29 at 03:03 AM, quoth Jack M: One can also use backtics in a muttrc to surround a snippet of shell script, thereby avoiding the need for keeping another shell script file laying round (in three places, no less): source `some-conditional-here` You can do even better than that; the power of inline backticks is significant. For example: set from=`[ $HOST == 'unix' ] echo -n unix || echo /n win32`@here.com I use the same muttrc on a variety of OS's (MacOSX and Linux, mostly, but also various BSDs and Solaris), and use exactly this kind of trick to get them all working right. ~Kyle -- Arguing with a fool proves there are two. -- Doris M. Smith
Multi-boot and Mutt
I used Mutt for several years when I first became a Linux user in 1999, and am considering returning to it if it gives me a shot at an objective I've been trying to achieve. For a variety of reasons, none of which are germane to this topic, I have arranged for my primary work computer (a Macbook Pro) to triple-boot into Mac OS X (Lion), Windows 7, and Linux (Ubuntu 12.04). I want to be able to both read new mail and all my archived email from any of those OSes, since I need to communicate whatever environment I happen to be working in at the moment. I tried to make Thunderbird do that, since it seems to allow for such behavior, but there were constant issues with file permissions and data reliability. It occurred to me recently that Mutt might be the answer. So here are the questions I can think of: 1. I don't expect this to be easy--but is there some reason it's just plain impossible? 2. Is it possible to write a single .muttrc that I can copy to the three home directories that can determine the folder path based on the current OS? That is, the common mail folder is called /Volumes/Common/Mail in OS X, D:/Common/Mail in Windows, and /Common/Mail in Linux. Or do I just have to have three separate .muttrc files and manually coordinate them? (I've never actually used the Windows version of Mutt, so I'm guessing at the path format.) 3. Does anyone have any advice for someone whose Mutt skills are rusty at best? -- Daryl Lee If logic tells you that life is a meaningless accident, don't give up on life. Give up on logic. -- Shira Milgrom
Re: Multi-boot and Mutt
* On 28 Jul 2012, Daryl Lee wrote: For a variety of reasons, none of which are germane to this topic, I have arranged for my primary work computer (a Macbook Pro) to triple-boot into Mac OS X (Lion), Windows 7, and Linux (Ubuntu 12.04). I want to be able to both read new mail and all my archived email from any of those OSes, since I need to communicate whatever environment I happen to be working in at the moment. I tried to make Thunderbird do that, since it seems to allow for such behavior, but there were constant issues with file permissions and data reliability. It occurred to me recently that Mutt might be the answer. So here are the questions I can think of: 1. I don't expect this to be easy--but is there some reason it's just plain impossible? Seems possible to me. Obviously, unless you use IMAP exclusively, you need a filestore that is shared among all three OSes, and the only common r/w filesystem I know of for those three OSes is FAT32. You may find problems with mail storage on FAT32, especially if using Maildir. You may need to use UNIXv7 (mbox) instead to get around filesystem limitations. There's another approach you could take that might seem totally nuts, but would avoid a lot of issues: put a stripped-down Linux VM on a shared FAT32 filesystem, use that VM for mutt (or whatever), and launch it from whatever OS you're running. 2. Is it possible to write a single .muttrc that I can copy to the three home directories that can determine the folder path based on the current OS? That is, the common mail folder is called /Volumes/Common/Mail in OS X, D:/Common/Mail in Windows, and /Common/Mail in Linux. Or do I just have to have three separate .muttrc files and manually coordinate them? (I've never actually used the Windows version of Mutt, so I'm guessing at the path format.) Sure. I've never used win32 mutt either, but presumably you can use it as part of a full mingw32/cygwin environment to get scripting tools. Behold this command: source ~/bin/muttrc.sh | That runs ~/bin/muttrc.sh, and interprets its output as muttrc commands. You can write a muttrc that emits your standard configuration, then runs that source command at the end to fill it out with variations based on current OS. -- David Champion • d...@uchicago.edu • IT Services • University of Chicago
