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