I really wouldn't be the one throwing stones, all these things aren't unintelligble, you just haven't got a good enough grip of how to use linux yet, which is a very very different thing.

unspawn has very very clearly stated that fetchmailconf is a *program* that will write *your* fetchmail.conf file for you.... It Is A Program, that's why it is in a /bin/ directory, that's where programs live... at a terminal just type in "fetchmailconf" and press enter. you get an error saying it can't find tkinter, so install that rpm and try again.

I'd suggest slowing down a bit and reading some beginners documentation, such as certain extracts from the Rute guide in my signature, before you start pulling your hair out and blaming linux. thanks

I'm not throwing stones at anyone
no,not for you. But for people like me they are,which was my point.

have you actually read the thread?
We got past that a long time ago and fetchmailconf works fine.

Yes,I would if I could find any beginner stuff on fetchmail., but I can't.That's my point.

who's blaming linux?
my point (again) is that there are no intelligable guides ,or people willing to translate guides into common English for the benefit of people who are new to linux.
This might be hard for you to understand, not being a newcommer.

how hard did you actually look?

http://www.rhce2b.com/clublinux/RHCE-40.shtml
http://jgo.local.net/LinuxGuide/linu...ent-setup.html
http://newbiedoc.sourceforge.net/net...fetchmail.html
http://esm2.imt-mrs.fr/~staffelb/gui...art1/pine.html

all straight from "newbie fetchmail setup" on google...

this is not correct at all, that's what were trying to say. You are not following the instructions given

you are trying to pass a program off as a config file, please retry with the config file after creating it

fetchmail normally just works without a problem once the config file is created


If you go back to the top of this post and follow the suggestions given you should have a working fetchmail by the time you get through it again

Oh boy..another really helpful reply !!!
Yipeee!!!

Oh,well that's ok then.

I've got an idea: why don't you just point out all the things I'm doing wrong,but then Don't tell me what to do to fix them?

This is such a great helpful forum ............

seriously,I think the probelms you guys have is that you send all your day talking to people who know stuff about Linux and then when someone comes along who doesn't know much you just can't relate or speak in an easy to understand manner.
Talk about user-unfriendly.

On top of that,you've got Mr. condescending as a moderator here(not you David),which doesn't help much.

the point is you need a fetchmail.conf file

that's it

the only other suggestion I have is that maybe you have no mail delivery agent running.

try this

cat /etc/hosts | mail root

then check root's mail to see if it made it

also check /var/log/maillog

my point is that there is no mention of a fetchmail.conf file in any of the web sites about fetchmail.
There is a fetchmailconf file which runs a gui based program to help you set up a .fetchmailrc file in the HOME directory.
No fetchmail.conf file though.
THAT was what I was saying

I would agree that you probably don't need one.

Not really sure how I got into the fetchmail.conf thing anyway, It's just the way the post was going it seemed that though people were trying to help it was getting .... oh well forget it, it's to late to worry about that now. The real problem is you have no mail server running on port 25 for fetchmail to deliver the mail with.

At least that's what I'm thinking it is now.

try the test above.

if you look at my very first post you will see the problem that I am having.
It is something to do with the SMTP .
Look at the first post of this thread and near the bottom of the terminal output in that post you will see:
1.that fetchmail actually picked up that a new mail arrives
2. that there was an error (fetchmail: SMTP connect to localhost failed)
3.that i didn't understand what the errror was about OR how to fix it.

the error was:
..code...
fetchmail: SMTP connect to localhost failed
fetchmail: POP3> QUIT
fetchmail: POP3< ghgfhfghfghfhfhfghfgfg
fetchmail: SMTP transaction error while fetching from mail.plus.net
fetchmail: 6.2.2 querying mail.plus.net (protocol POP3) at Fri 16 May 2003 01:41:48 BST: poll completed
fetchmail: Query status=10 (SMTP)
fetchmail: normal termination, status 10

capiche?

another test would be to do this


telnet localhost 25

and

telnet localhost smtp

ok, remember that I'm a newbie and that i understand practically nothing.
Now,I just want to be sure I am doing the right thing with this test:

1.I go to the terminal and type: #cat /etc/hosts | mail root
do I have to do this as root?

2.Now I have to check root's mail? What do you mean.Log out and log back in again as root and check my email?

3 also check /var/log/maillog/
Sorry,but waht am I looking for here? waht should I do with this mailog file?

[root@localhost ludwig]# telnet localhost 25
Trying 127.0.0.1...
telnet: connect to address 127.0.0.1: Connection refused

and
[root@localhost ludwig]# telnet localhost smtp
Trying 127.0.0.1...
telnet: connect to address 127.0.0.1: Connection refused

...now to my uneducated mind,that doesn't look good.
I did get rid of some services a little while ago from the GNOME services gui. Could I have got rid of something I needed?

sending the mail to root can be done as anyone

cat /etc/hosts | mail root

but you can send to yourself, root was just an example I used because everyone has root


to send to yourself

cat /etc/hosts | mail username

then check the mail with this command

mail

you should see the message which is the contents of the file you mailed to yourself

to check /var/log/maillog you do need to be root

to get root access you can use su

su -

then enter root's password

now as root type this

tail -f /var/log/maillog

you probably have sendmail

it needs to be running as a service

after starting sendmail try again