Help, I've tried everything I know. I've done every possible web search there is to be done with regard to this problem. I'm too frustrated to be coherent, so I'll be brief:
a. I want to use fetchmail to check my school mail account.
b. I have postfix installed
c. Fetchmail fails with error 10 (can't find localhost smtp)
d. Telnetting to localhost smtp times out.
e. I've found absolutely nothing that deals with how to open the smtp port when postfix has been (presumably) configured correctly by dpkg (yes, using Debian Sarge on a ppc mac)

.fetchmailrc is as follows (with the appropriate values filled in naturally):

poll [remote mail server] with proto POP3 and options no dns user [my username] with password [my password] is [local user] here smtphost localhost

Please help, someone, I'm ready to throw the whole network out the window, all three computers plus wireless router in quick succession. I'm sure it's a stupid configuration file, but I can't figure it out. Thanks.

If you tried telneting localhost 25 and got "connection refused", that's because postfix is not running. Did you check to make sure it is running? If it's not, run the binary. After you run it and it doesn't run, check the logs to see why it failed.

-twantrd

I don't get connecion refused. I should have said that. It simply times out. Postfix is definitely running. There is nothing interesting in the logs.

cellist:
You need to see which programs are listening on which ports, etc. For that, please run the following command:
and post the results.

If postfix is running (in which case you'll see master listening on port 25), then it may be a postfix setting. Check your postfix's config file settings (usually found in /etc/postfix/main.cf), or post the output from the following command:
which will show us the postfix settings not left at their defaults. Pay close attention to the following settings:
There may be missing postfix files, or files with the wrong permissions set. To check that out, do:
Have your tried running:
The output will be:
if postfix wasn't running, in which case you should start it with:
postfix start
After doing "postfix start", wait about 10 seconds, and then re-run "postfix reload". If it still says postfix isn't running, then postfix is unable to successfully start, and you should check out your mail log file(s).
egrep '(fatal|warning|error)' /var/log/maillog
Note: Your maillog file may be elsewhere.

Keep us posted.

Wow, lots of information. I'll try all these things and let you know what I find out. Thanks for the reply.