You should have no problem compiling, installing, or running mutt. Users of qmail can either get the patch or run it with -f flag to read their local mail folder.
If mutt bothers you with an "unknown terminal error" after a distribution upgrading, just recompile it.
Elm compiles, installs and runs flawlessly under Linux. For more information, see the elm sources and installation instructions. Elm and filter need to be mode 2755 (group mail) with /var/spool/mail mode 775 and group mail.
Qmail users can get a patch to use nifty qmail features, or will run elm with the -f flag to point to their local mail folder.
One thing you want to be aware of is that if you have Elm compiled to
be MIME-able, you need metamail installed and in the standard path or
Elm will not be able to read MIME mail you've received. Metamail is
available on thumper.bellcore.com and of course via "archie".
If you use a binary distribution, you'll need to create a "/usr/local/lib/elm/elm.rc" file to override the compiled-in hostname and domain information:
#---------- /usr/local/lib/elm/elm.rc ------------------
#
# this is the unqualified hostname
hostname = myhostname
#
# this is the local domain
hostdomain = subdomain.domain
#
# this is the fully qualified hostname
hostfullname = myhostname.subdomain.domain
#
#--------------------------------------------------------
One thing you want to be aware of is that if you have Elm compiled to
be MIME enabled, you need metamail installed and in your path or Elm
will not be able to read MIME mail you've received. Metamail is
available on thumper.bellcore.com and of course via "archie".
In the "too cool to be true" category, there is a distribution of
Elm-2.4.24 that is "PGP-aware". To try it, grab the file
ftp://ftp.viewlogic.com/pub/elm-2.4pl24pgp3.tar.gz, which is
elm2.4.24 with PGP hooks added. You configure and build it the same
way you do normal Elm, which means you probably need to add the
patches mentioned above. For what it's worth, I run it here and like
it a lot. Of course, there must be more recent versions available,
including elm-ME+.
While this item is not Linux-specific, it's perceived (wrongly) to be a nagging Elm bug nevertheless. We've heard that Elm sometimes fails with a message that it's unable to malloc() some massive number of bytes. The identified workaround is to remove the post-processed global mail aliases (aliases.dir and aliases.pag).
THIS IS NOT A BUG IN ELM, it's an error in configuration of Elm by
whomever you got your binary distribution of Elm from.
Elm has an enhanced and non-compatible, format for aliases ; you need
to ensure that the path Elm uses for aliases is different from the
path sendmail/smail uses. From the volume of reports of this problem,
it's apparent that at least one major distribution 'on the street' has
in the past been misconfigured. (from scot at catzen.gun.de (Scot
W. Stevenson) )
The current metamail package requires csh for some of its scripts. Failure to have csh (or tcsh) will cause most interesting errors...
If you don't have a local mailx program, save yourself the pain -- just go
and grab the mailx kit from Slackware 2.1.0 or later, which has a nice
implementation of mailx5.5. If you're into building from sources, mailx v5.5
compiles without patching under Linux if you have "pmake" installed.
If anybody is still using it, I strongly recommend removing the old "edmail" stuff from SLS1.00 and replacing it with mailx.