1 .. _email_clients: 2 3 Email clients info for Linux 4 ============================ 5 6 Git 7 --- 8 9 These days most developers use ``git send-email`` instead of regular 10 email clients. The man page for this is quite good. On the receiving 11 end, maintainers use ``git am`` to apply the patches. 12 13 If you are new to ``git`` then send your first patch to yourself. Save it 14 as raw text including all the headers. Run ``git am raw_email.txt`` and 15 then review the changelog with ``git log``. When that works then send 16 the patch to the appropriate mailing list(s). 17 18 General Preferences 19 ------------------- 20 21 Patches for the Linux kernel are submitted via email, preferably as 22 inline text in the body of the email. Some maintainers accept 23 attachments, but then the attachments should have content-type 24 ``text/plain``. However, attachments are generally frowned upon because 25 it makes quoting portions of the patch more difficult in the patch 26 review process. 27 28 It's also strongly recommended that you use plain text in your email body, 29 for patches and other emails alike. https://useplaintext.email may be useful 30 for information on how to configure your preferred email client, as well as 31 listing recommended email clients should you not already have a preference. 32 33 Email clients that are used for Linux kernel patches should send the 34 patch text untouched. For example, they should not modify or delete tabs 35 or spaces, even at the beginning or end of lines. 36 37 Don't send patches with ``format=flowed``. This can cause unexpected 38 and unwanted line breaks. 39 40 Don't let your email client do automatic word wrapping for you. 41 This can also corrupt your patch. 42 43 Email clients should not modify the character set encoding of the text. 44 Emailed patches should be in ASCII or UTF-8 encoding only. 45 If you configure your email client to send emails with UTF-8 encoding, 46 you avoid some possible charset problems. 47 48 Email clients should generate and maintain "References:" or "In-Reply-To:" 49 headers so that mail threading is not broken. 50 51 Copy-and-paste (or cut-and-paste) usually does not work for patches 52 because tabs are converted to spaces. Using xclipboard, xclip, and/or 53 xcutsel may work, but it's best to test this for yourself or just avoid 54 copy-and-paste. 55 56 Don't use PGP/GPG signatures in mail that contains patches. 57 This breaks many scripts that read and apply the patches. 58 (This should be fixable.) 59 60 It's a good idea to send a patch to yourself, save the received message, 61 and successfully apply it with 'patch' before sending patches to Linux 62 mailing lists. 63 64 65 Some email client (MUA) hints 66 ----------------------------- 67 68 Here are some specific MUA configuration hints for editing and sending 69 patches for the Linux kernel. These are not meant to be complete 70 software package configuration summaries. 71 72 73 Legend: 74 75 - TUI = text-based user interface 76 - GUI = graphical user interface 77 78 Alpine (TUI) 79 ************ 80 81 Config options: 82 83 In the :menuselection:`Sending Preferences` section: 84 85 - :menuselection:`Do Not Send Flowed Text` must be ``enabled`` 86 - :menuselection:`Strip Whitespace Before Sending` must be ``disabled`` 87 88 When composing the message, the cursor should be placed where the patch 89 should appear, and then pressing :kbd:`CTRL-R` let you specify the patch file 90 to insert into the message. 91 92 Claws Mail (GUI) 93 **************** 94 95 Works. Some people use this successfully for patches. 96 97 To insert a patch use :menuselection:`Message-->Insert File` (:kbd:`CTRL-I`) 98 or an external editor. 99 100 If the inserted patch has to be edited in the Claws composition window 101 "Auto wrapping" in 102 :menuselection:`Configuration-->Preferences-->Compose-->Wrapping` should be 103 disabled. 104 105 Evolution (GUI) 106 *************** 107 108 Some people use this successfully for patches. 109 110 When composing mail select: Preformat 111 from :menuselection:`Format-->Paragraph Style-->Preformatted` (:kbd:`CTRL-7`) 112 or the toolbar 113 114 Then use: 115 :menuselection:`Insert-->Text File...` (:kbd:`ALT-N x`) 116 to insert the patch. 117 118 You can also ``diff -Nru old.c new.c | xclip``, select 119 :menuselection:`Preformat`, then paste with the middle button. 120 121 Kmail (GUI) 122 *********** 123 124 Some people use Kmail successfully for patches. 125 126 The default setting of not composing in HTML is appropriate; do not 127 enable it. 128 129 When composing an email, under options, uncheck "word wrap". The only 130 disadvantage is any text you type in the email will not be word-wrapped 131 so you will have to manually word wrap text before the patch. The easiest 132 way around this is to compose your email with word wrap enabled, then save 133 it as a draft. Once you pull it up again from your drafts it is now hard 134 word-wrapped and you can uncheck "word wrap" without losing the existing 135 wrapping. 136 137 At the bottom of your email, put the commonly-used patch delimiter before 138 inserting your patch: three hyphens (``---``). 139 140 Then from the :menuselection:`Message` menu item, select 141 :menuselection:`insert file` and choose your patch. 142 As an added bonus you can customise the message creation toolbar menu 143 and put the :menuselection:`insert file` icon there. 144 145 Make the composer window wide enough so that no lines wrap. As of 146 KMail 1.13.5 (KDE 4.5.4), KMail will apply word wrapping when sending 147 the email if the lines wrap in the composer window. Having word wrapping 148 disabled in the Options menu isn't enough. Thus, if your patch has very 149 long lines, you must make the composer window very wide before sending 150 the email. See: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=174034 151 152 You can safely GPG sign attachments, but inlined text is preferred for 153 patches so do not GPG sign them. Signing patches that have been inserted 154 as inlined text will make them tricky to extract from their 7-bit encoding. 155 156 If you absolutely must send patches as attachments instead of inlining 157 them as text, right click on the attachment and select :menuselection:`properties`, 158 and highlight :menuselection:`Suggest automatic display` to make the attachment 159 inlined to make it more viewable. 160 161 When saving patches that are sent as inlined text, select the email that 162 contains the patch from the message list pane, right click and select 163 :menuselection:`save as`. You can use the whole email unmodified as a patch 164 if it was properly composed. Emails are saved as read-write for user only so 165 you will have to chmod them to make them group and world readable if you copy 166 them elsewhere. 167 168 Lotus Notes (GUI) 169 ***************** 170 171 Run away from it. 172 173 IBM Verse (Web GUI) 174 ******************* 175 176 See Lotus Notes. 177 178 Mutt (TUI) 179 ********** 180 181 Plenty of Linux developers use ``mutt``, so it must work pretty well. 182 183 Mutt doesn't come with an editor, so whatever editor you use should be 184 used in a way that there are no automatic linebreaks. Most editors have 185 an :menuselection:`insert file` option that inserts the contents of a file 186 unaltered. 187 188 To use ``vim`` with mutt:: 189 190 set editor="vi" 191 192 If using xclip, type the command:: 193 194 :set paste 195 196 before middle button or shift-insert or use:: 197 198 :r filename 199 200 if you want to include the patch inline. 201 (a)ttach works fine without ``set paste``. 202 203 You can also generate patches with ``git format-patch`` and then use Mutt 204 to send them:: 205 206 $ mutt -H 0001-some-bug-fix.patch 207 208 Config options: 209 210 It should work with default settings. 211 However, it's a good idea to set the ``send_charset`` to:: 212 213 set send_charset="us-ascii:utf-8" 214 215 Mutt is highly customizable. Here is a minimum configuration to start 216 using Mutt to send patches through Gmail:: 217 218 # .muttrc 219 # ================ IMAP ==================== 220 set imap_user = 'yourusername@gmail.com' 221 set imap_pass = 'yourpassword' 222 set spoolfile = imaps://imap.gmail.com/INBOX 223 set folder = imaps://imap.gmail.com/ 224 set record="imaps://imap.gmail.com/[Gmail]/Sent Mail" 225 set postponed="imaps://imap.gmail.com/[Gmail]/Drafts" 226 set mbox="imaps://imap.gmail.com/[Gmail]/All Mail" 227 228 # ================ SMTP ==================== 229 set smtp_url = "smtp://username@smtp.gmail.com:587/" 230 set smtp_pass = $imap_pass 231 set ssl_force_tls = yes # Require encrypted connection 232 233 # ================ Composition ==================== 234 set editor = `echo \$EDITOR` 235 set edit_headers = yes # See the headers when editing 236 set charset = UTF-8 # value of $LANG; also fallback for send_charset 237 # Sender, email address, and sign-off line must match 238 unset use_domain # because joe@localhost is just embarrassing 239 set realname = "YOUR NAME" 240 set from = "username@gmail.com" 241 set use_from = yes 242 243 The Mutt docs have lots more information: 244 245 https://gitlab.com/muttmua/mutt/-/wikis/UseCases/Gmail 246 247 http://www.mutt.org/doc/manual/ 248 249 Pine (TUI) 250 ********** 251 252 Pine has had some whitespace truncation issues in the past, but these 253 should all be fixed now. 254 255 Use alpine (pine's successor) if you can. 256 257 Config options: 258 259 - ``quell-flowed-text`` is needed for recent versions 260 - the ``no-strip-whitespace-before-send`` option is needed 261 262 263 Sylpheed (GUI) 264 ************** 265 266 - Works well for inlining text (or using attachments). 267 - Allows use of an external editor. 268 - Is slow on large folders. 269 - Won't do TLS SMTP auth over a non-SSL connection. 270 - Has a helpful ruler bar in the compose window. 271 - Adding addresses to address book doesn't understand the display name 272 properly. 273 274 Thunderbird (GUI) 275 ***************** 276 277 Thunderbird is an Outlook clone that likes to mangle text, but there are ways 278 to coerce it into behaving. 279 280 After doing the modifications, this includes installing the extensions, 281 you need to restart Thunderbird. 282 283 - Allow use of an external editor: 284 285 The easiest thing to do with Thunderbird and patches is to use extensions 286 which open your favorite external editor. 287 288 Here are some example extensions which are capable of doing this. 289 290 - "External Editor Revived" 291 292 https://github.com/Frederick888/external-editor-revived 293 294 https://addons.thunderbird.net/en-GB/thunderbird/addon/external-editor-revived/ 295 296 It requires installing a "native messaging host". 297 Please read the wiki which can be found here: 298 https://github.com/Frederick888/external-editor-revived/wiki 299 300 - "External Editor" 301 302 https://github.com/exteditor/exteditor 303 304 To do this, download and install the extension, then open the 305 :menuselection:`compose` window, add a button for it using 306 :menuselection:`View-->Toolbars-->Customize...` 307 then just click on the new button when you wish to use the external editor. 308 309 Please note that "External Editor" requires that your editor must not 310 fork, or in other words, the editor must not return before closing. 311 You may have to pass additional flags or change the settings of your 312 editor. Most notably if you are using gvim then you must pass the -f 313 option to gvim by putting ``/usr/bin/gvim --nofork"`` (if the binary is in 314 ``/usr/bin``) to the text editor field in :menuselection:`external editor` 315 settings. If you are using some other editor then please read its manual 316 to find out how to do this. 317 318 To beat some sense out of the internal editor, do this: 319 320 - Edit your Thunderbird config settings so that it won't use ``format=flowed``! 321 Go to your main window and find the button for your main dropdown menu. 322 :menuselection:`Main Menu-->Preferences-->General-->Config Editor...` 323 to bring up the thunderbird's registry editor. 324 325 - Set ``mailnews.send_plaintext_flowed`` to ``false`` 326 327 - Set ``mailnews.wraplength`` from ``72`` to ``0`` 328 329 - Don't write HTML messages! Go to the main window 330 :menuselection:`Main Menu-->Account Settings-->youracc@server.something-->Composition & Addressing`! 331 There you can disable the option "Compose messages in HTML format". 332 333 - Open messages only as plain text! Go to the main window 334 :menuselection:`Main Menu-->View-->Message Body As-->Plain Text`! 335 336 TkRat (GUI) 337 *********** 338 339 Works. Use "Insert file..." or external editor. 340 341 Gmail (Web GUI) 342 *************** 343 344 Does not work for sending patches. 345 346 Gmail web client converts tabs to spaces automatically. 347 348 At the same time it wraps lines every 78 chars with CRLF style line breaks 349 although tab2space problem can be solved with external editor. 350 351 Another problem is that Gmail will base64-encode any message that has a 352 non-ASCII character. That includes things like European names. 353 354 HacKerMaiL (TUI) 355 **************** 356 357 HacKerMaiL (hkml) is a public-inbox based simple mails management tool that 358 doesn't require subscription of mailing lists. It is developed and maintained 359 by the DAMON maintainer and aims to support simple development workflows for 360 DAMON and general kernel subsystems. Refer to the README 361 (https://github.com/sjp38/hackermail/blob/master/README.md) for details.
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