Re: A few random comments and a little confusion

[awilliam@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]

> Also, I cannot seem to configure my linux box for internet access, 
which
> is getting rather frustrating.  Which brings me to my good news in a
> roundabout way: I now have a linux box! :)  I'm the spikey haired,
> bespectacled fellow that came to the PAM/NSS meeting and newbie 
meeting
> (unsuccessful install) awhile back, and will be coming again shortly.
> I'm not quite at the end of my rope on this whole PPP issue, so I'm
> going to be stubborn and not request any help from you guys until I'm
> wallowing in endless confusion.  However, I _will_ ask you about a
> little quirk...

Be sure to check out the PPP sections of the "Past Presentations" and 
"Tech Notes" on the KLUG server.  They have some pretty fool proof 
recipies<sp>.

> Whenever I login as root on my box, I am informed that I "have mail."
> This is odd, seeing as I have yet to successfully connect to the
> internet nor, at the time, had I even started a single e-mail program.

The mail is possibly from the system itself, as a result of cron jobs 
etc...  You do not NEED an internet connection to do mail.  People 
with accounts on the machine can e-mail each other without ever using 
the internet.  Do you get mail to root only when your machine has been 
on awhile?

> When I log out, I am once again informed that I have mail, and further
> information concerning the location (/var/spool/mail/root) is also
> disclosed.  I used multiple mail programs, including pine, to check my

If pine says you don't have any then I wouldn't worry about it.  
Interesting that you get the message though.  For reading roots mail 
I'd stick with pine.  Differing mail clients can sometimes cause 
confusion.

> e-mail and I they all say I have none.  One mail indicator program,
> however, said simply "2" while the other said nothing...So, at the
> advice of Jon Sanders, I checked var/spool/mail/root with a text 
editor
> and got some jumbo about not deleting the stuff in there, please,
> because I would lose folder configuration, and anyways, if I _did_
> delete it no good would be done because it would all just come back 
when
> I started another mail program.  Therefore, I deleted the contents.
> When I logged in again, I was once again greeted with "You have mail."
> *sigh*  I double checked, and since I hadn't run any mail programs the
> file was still empty.  I stated another mail program, which once again
> said I had no mail.  /var/spool/mail/root remained empty.  Then I
> decided to run another mail program to re-create this file.  However,
> K's mail client did not recreate it, and pine said it was in the wrong
> format.  I deleted it, then ran pine again in the hopes that it would

You ran K as root? AAAAHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!  I think that might 
not be so good an idea.