apt-get install

Linux.com has another great article up, this time re-reviewing text email clients. You may ask, “Why use a text email client nowadays, when there are so many GUI-based clients available in all distributions?” And I have an easy answer for you: Try running KMail/Kontact/Thunderbird/Evolution over a console-based SSH connection. Doesn’t work ‘cuz there’s no X server running? Exactly!

These days, Mutt is probably the most popular text-based MUA for Linux distributions and *BSD variants. The reasons for its popularity aren’t hard to discern. It’s GPLed, so there’s no licensing issue as with Pine. It’s full-featured, and has support for IMAP and POP3, several mailbox formats, control over mail headers, PGP and MIME support, and much more.

Of course, it’s not news to me that mutt kicks ass. I am constantly torn between using mutt or KMail. KMail makes working with old/archived email a lot easier, but for working with incoming mail, nothing is faster, easier, nor more configurable than mutt. If you haven’t given it a try, you really need to.