Thomas,

> So: are you using Kmails SMTP (that sometimes is buggy)
> or another (like sendmail)? Can you send longer 
> messages with other programs?

I will have to investigate. Know however that I did not
adjust or configure anything to do with mail. Being a 
newbie, I figured it best to go with the package install 
defaults. 

I know that on prior times I have tried to send long 
messages composed on Communicator, then clicked "send" 
and gotten a long wait (about as long as the 
"trasmitting" window stays up with KMail -- come to 
think of it) followed by a "Request timed out" message 
from Communicator.

But I have not yet attempted to iteratively define 
whether there be a 2k char barrier on Netscape like the 
one on KMail.

As for my system: on both the laptop and the tower all I 
have are fresh installs of NetBSD 1.5.1, binary pkg 
installs of Communicator 4.6 and pkgsrc installs of KDE2.

One or the other may also have GPG, OpenSSH and OpenSSL 
installed. But I have yet made no move to configure or 
use them yet.

I have done Chapter 9 of the NetBSD Guide on Networking. 
My ISP is AT&T Worldnet.

I had just wanted the basic everyday stuff up and running 
before I should delve further into fun things like SSH 
and all of that. 

A month ago I'd had KDE 1.1.2 up on NetBSD 1.5 on the 
ThinkPad. Netscape too. Same story, fresh install of 
NetBSD and just a minimum of extras -- ssh-ip-tunnel. But 
the KMail thing did the same lockup-thing there. Except 
that I had no clue about the 2K char barrier. So I 
didn't test for that, and can't say for sure that was 
it. 

But I had come running to KDE2 mostly to get away from 
that glitch in KMail, and to avoid the redundancy of 
Netscape/Konqueror, KMail/Communicator. 

Alas and alak... If only there were a clean list of 
overlap-free packages that are known to work 
perfectly well together, provided that most of them were 
GUI types, I would gladly adhere to that list.

I liken it to when I bought my motorcycle. Sure I was 
going to change this and that...later. But first all of 
it had to just work: the lights, horn, blinkers, speedo, 
etc. At first, I just wanted to get on in and ride. 
Only after the basic thrill began to pale did I trouble 
myself to re-do the carbs, pipes and airbox, etc.

What I (and maybe others) would seem to need is a 
newbie-1.tgz package which would install a very basic set 
of standardized utils. Just pick a set from out of one of 
the less expensive Unix books, like "Jump Start" by 
Peachtree. Have that newbie-package sets up stuff like 
in the book, with the same defaults and all. For whatever 
might be customized, have the newbie answer queries like 
in the xf86config process.

If I should ever get past all this crap, that is what I 
am going to do (assuming I don't switch to FreeBSD or 
back to Linux first). Even now I'm writing newbie howtos 
as I go along...for damn near anything I take up. I 
know that they ain't much, yet. But that's how annoyed I 
am with this business. I don't ever just complain. Always 
I do something about it: either I help others along, or 
else I warn all others away. Which is what I was meaning 
to say in that first, poorly phrased post of mine. 

Right now I'm in a helping mode, for so long as my 
patience (and funds) may endure. 

Regards,

Gan


--
Mysterious Starling -- Rarest Extinct Bird
     _         
   <(+)__        Gan Uesli Starling 
     ((__/)=-    Kalamazoo, MI, USA
      `||`      
       ++        http://starling.ws 

Newbie-2-Newbie NetBSD Unix How-To Pages at... 
http://om-ah-hum.com/share/gus_netbsd_index.html