bash new mail notification
 

for some reason i can't get bash to check my mailbox and display a "you have new mail" message in the console. i use fetchmail and pine, and this is my .bash_profile:

# .bash_profile

# get the aliases and functions
if [ -f ~/.bashrc ]; then
. ~/.bashrc
fi

# user specific environment and startup programs

PATH=$PATH:$HOME/bin
BASH_ENV=$HOME/.bashrc
USERNAME="root"
export USERNAME BASH_ENV PATH

export MAIL="/var/spool/mail/root"
export MAILPATH='/var/spool/mail/root "You have new mail."'
export MAILCHECK=10
fetchmail

and my .fetchmailrc:

set daemon 60
poll orbital.pobox.stanford.edu with protocol pop3
username orbital
password ************
ssl
fetchall

fetchmail doesn't tell you you have new mail, that's biff

"biff on"

i dont have biff on my system, and it's true that fetchmail does not tell me that i have new mail, but when it pulls mail from my mail server it update /var/spool/mail/root, and thus bash is supposed to check if the file has been modified every $MAILCHECK seconds, and then notify me. So bash is supposed to be doing the notification, but given my settings above, it's not happening. And I'm wondering why bash isn't doing its job.