Starting Kmail
Kmail can be found in the K Menu if you are running KDE, under the Internet item.
If you have a slower machine (601/603) it may take about 30 seconds to load, faster machines should load within a few seconds (it will show it's loading via. a spinning disk on the taskbar next to it's name).
Configuring a Mail Account
The first time you start Kmail, you will see a pretty message inviting you to configure Kmail, via. the Settings -> Configuration menu.
Identify Tab
When you open up Settings -> Configuration, you should change your name and address (the default ones are from your account on your system, for example:)
Name: Mike S. Smith Organization: localhost Reply-to Address: Email Address: msmith
You should change that to actual values, such as:
Name: Mike Smith Organization: Reply-to Address: Email Address: msith@example.com
Network Tab
Next click on the Network icon.
For the sending mail part of this panel, you will have the choice between Sendmail and STMP. Most users will use STMP (ie. using an external server to send email, such as your ISP's machine). If you are sure you have Sendmail working, you can use that instead.
You may want to click the Properities tab, if you want to enter in a precommand (a command to be ran before Sending Mail), most users won't need to change anything here.
Next look at the Incoming Mail part of this panel.
You will need to click "Add" to add an email account.
It will give you the choice of Pop3 mail or Local Mailbox. IMAP users, should use fetchmail to deliver mail to your local mailbox (see below, and the fetchmail G&H).
Local Mail
Everybody will want at least one local incoming Mailbox set to check, as it contains mes sages sent to your from the System, and messages from users that work directly on your system.
When the Account Type: Local window pops up, change the name of the account to something that will remind you it's from the local machine, such as Localhost Mail.
You probably will want to Enable Interval Mail Checking, this allows you to download mail while you are online.
If you use fetchmail to download mail from IMAP servers, or other servers, you should enter it in the Precommand blank.
Click OK.
Repeat this steps to create additional email accounts.
Pop3 Mail
When the Account Type: Pop3 window appears, enter in the name for the account. You can call it anything you want, I call mine Global2000.net.
For login, enter the login name for your mail server (for example imsmith).
For password, enter in your password. Your password may or may not appear as stars, depending on your setting in the KDE Control Center (default is stars).
For host, enter in your host of mail server, such as mail.example.com.
Most users will want to check the following boxes:
[x] Store Pop Password In Configuration File [x] Delete Mail from Server [x] Reterive All Mail from Server
Other Tabs
There are many other tabs relating to appearance, PGP, etc. you can use to configure other things, but they are not essential.
These aren't essential for using Kmail, but can be changed at later time to your desired preferences.
Recieving Mail
Click the mail tray with the down arrow pointing to it (fourth icon over), or use File -> Check Mail.
Good luck with Kmail. It is probably one of the nicest mailing programs for Linux, especially if you use KDE. Send comments to Andrew B. Arthur, .
