I cannot seem to send emails. I started using Claws on a laptop running Ubuntu 10.10. To send mail, I used my service provders SMTP address - mail.inet.fi, port 25. Everything worked OK.

I then set up another laptop, running Slackware 13.37. At first I used Thunderbird, which was installed with Slackware. I used exactly the same setting as with the Ubuntu/Claws set-up. Mails sent OK, but for SMTP, it asked for a password. Which should not be needed.

I then installed Claws. Again, I made sure the settings were exactly the same as the Ubuntu/Claws set-up - I had the laptops sitting side-by-side, to make sure. Again, it will not send mails. But it just returns a message saying "SMTP error" - not much to go on.

Any ideas?

The mail server at mail.inet.fi advertises AUTH support. I suspect it does require you to provide a username and password in order to use it as a relay.

I haven't used Claws in many years (since it was a set of patches against Sylpheed), so I'm not all that familiar with it. However, I'd be surprised if all it returned to you was "SMTP error" if it was unable to send email. Full errors provided by the remote mail server often provide enough information to help narrow down the problem.

Can you post the SMTP settings you used in Thunderbird? I'm using version 3.1.11 and the SMTP server settings allow me to select whether a password is used.

For Thunderbird, I am using the same settings. Just the SMTP server and port: mail.inet.fi 25.

The thing is, I have both laptops sitting side-by-side. The account setting on both are the same. Just the server address and port. From the Ubuntu laptop, Claws sends mail OK. From the Slackware laptop, neither Claws or Thunderbird can send over SMTP. It leads me to think there is something not set right in Slackware, maybe?

Or it means that Ubuntu made distro-specific patches to Claws.

Let us know what the error messages are from the mail clients when you try to send email. I don't know about Claws, but Thunderbird reports the full error message from the SMTP server when an email is rejected.

Firewall?
Are you on the same connection for both laptops?

Kind regards

Yes, same connection, both wireless to the home internet connection.
When setting up Slackware, there is a checkbox for running an SMTP server, or something to do with Sendmail, but I have checked it, I figured it was using the actual PC as the SMTP server - on previous Slackware installations, I used either the "comes with Slackware" Gnome or KDE desktop. Back then I used Evolution mail. I never had a problem then either.

Same mail app., same settings, same connection. Ubuntu works, Slackware doesn't.
The only other difference is that on the Slackware laptop, the desktop is Xfce.

Well, this is embarrassing... It seems the fault was not with Slackware, rather it was caused by the wetware between the chair and keyboard

For my email address, I had put the wrong domain name - I had used .com rather than .fi.

Thunderbird is still asking for a password for the SMTP server, but that is not a problem, as I prefer to use Claws at the moment (1gig PIII laptop with 256 MB RAM - you want as little overheads as possible!)

Thanks for all your help though!