A few random comments and a little confusion

[rambozo <rambozo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

First off, a disclaimer and suggestion: I would probably be sending this
message to the novice mailing list, except that i have no idea what the
proper e-mail address is for that, and as far as I can tell its not
posted anywhere in the mailing list section of the kalamazoolinux.org
website (thats the suggestion part).

I haven't e-mailed to this list in awhile because I have been having
rather significant computer troubles.  The windows box I used for e-mail
had a little run in with a metal case-attachment thingamabob which
resulted in a shorted out motherboard. Yikes!  But, thankfully,
insurance covers it.

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...

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.
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
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
create it again in the correct format.  No such luck, there is no longer
a /var/spool/mail/root.  I _did_ get rid of that pesky "you have mail"
message, though.  What should I do and can someone explain this all?  It
wasn't exactly too smooth of me to be doing all this without really
knowing whats going on, but at least I'm learning and haven't really
hurt anything, I guess.  Did I break an;ything?  It's not really a major
problem, just something I'm interested in understanding as I wade my way
through the world of linux. Thanks,

-Josh