<mail> command missing?

[Tristan Wibberley]

Daniel Robitaille wrote:
> On 12/17/05, Mike Bird <mgb-ubuntu at yosemite.net> wrote:
> 
>>On Sat, 2005-12-17 at 19:57, Daniel Robitaille wrote:
>>
>>>There has been discussions about how to do with
>>>Mail ever since the spring, with the aim to apply the changes for
>>>Breezy.   I suspect the root of mailx not being installed by default
>>>comes from these discussions.  See for example this spec from UDU in
>>>April:
>>>  https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MailRoadmap
>>
>>That discussion, initiated by MattZimmerman, proposed switching
>>from Exim to Postfix, standardising on Maildir format in a
>>non-standard but sensible ~/.maildir directory, and eventually
>>making all mail apps automagically work together when installed.
>>All excellent points.
>>
>>If there's an official explanation for dumping Postfix and Mailx I
>>haven't found it yet.
> 
> 
> but there was some hints in there about totally getting rid of all
> this for normal users.  See for example at the end:
> 
> "What about replacing the MTA with SSMTP and configure all clients to
> use that as the standard smtp "gateway"? "

I think local delivery (and thus a decent MTA on the system) should be
natural for "normal" users, then you can just leave messages for each
other. This should be configured and set up by default (including
default configuration for things like evolution and thunderbird). This
isn't an *advanced* usage - it's just too difficult for most people to
configure. That isn't an argument for making it *harder* to do, it's an
argument for doing the configuration for them since local messaging
should be so natural for people. That difficult things should be removed
instead of made easy is bizarre - that is what appliances are for and
that needs a complete redesign of the GUI away from the desktop idea.
There is more to life than the internet - many people can't even afford
the internet but they should still have local messaging.

> This sounds like  getting rid of postfix all together and have only by
> default applications that can talk to a smtp server directly (which I
> believe is not case of mailx).

and read maildir folders. I agree there is no need for the sendmail
commandline program in the default install (but I think it should be in
main) as long as a local delivery MTA is installed and configured by
default, preferably with evolution and thunderbird setting up accounts
using that maildir on first use. That MTA should be one that can also be
reconfigured for more complex delivery actions so you don't have to make
big changes to your system as you become a more advanced user - I think
postfix is ideal.

I also think an nntp server should be configured by default with a few
groups for home user interests too. Also setting up newsreaders on first
use to point to it.

These are features that should be available on absolutely every install
right off the bat for every user to start using right away without
having to understand how to install and configure a difficult daemon,
and then configure all the family's client programs, because that just
makes Ubuntu *difficult*.

It would also help to standardise Ubuntu set ups on these default
daemons, which would be really useful for targetting new features and
support.

-- 
Tristan Wibberley