| | | Selecting a mail tool |
There are many tools for sending and reading electronic mail under the Unix operating system.
Your system may have a graphically oriented mail tool that you can start by clicking an icon, and your World-Wide Web browser likely has the capability to send mail too. If you are a student at Texas A&M University, then you can send mail from neo using your World-Wide Web browser. There are many free web-based e-mail services.
Such mailers are typically easy to use, but you will need to learn another tool if you have to dial in over a modem using a dumb terminal interface. Also, you may not find the same mail tool installed on a different Unix system.
You may find it more convenient to manage your mail with a tool that is installed on most Unix systems and that can be used either under a graphical interface or over a slow modem connection. Several such tools exist.
If you use Emacs for text editing, then you will probably want
to use Emacs for mail too. To
compose a mail message, simply press "Ctrl-x m". To
read your mail, type "Meta-x rmail". Under X-Windows,
there is an intuitive menu across the top of the screen; you
will want to learn some keyboard shortcuts for use under a
terminal-based interface.
Pine is a terminal-based mail tool with an intuitive menu at the bottom of the screen. (Type "pine" in a terminal window.) While not universally available, Pine is free and commonly installed. It has support for MIME. See the Pine Information Center for complete details.
The only really universal Unix mail program is the command "mail", but it is not user-friendly. Issued with no argument, the mail command lists your incoming mail. You type p or t to display the contents of a message, and ? to get some cryptic help. To compose a message, use the command "mail user". To send the message, type a period on a line by itself, or press Ctrl-d. For more information, read the manual page via "man mail".
The Math 696 course
pages were last modified April 5, 2005. | | | Selecting a mail tool |