Emacs for E-Mail
Emacs has been called the Swiss Army knife of GNU/Linux because of all the functions it can perform. Sending and receiving e-mail is another application of Emacs that you may want to use. It is important to note that not all e-mail services support the use of Gnus or Emacs as a mail client. Double-check with your e-mail service to see if they support this before you configure the .gnus file.

If your e-mail service provides support for Emacs and Gnus, let’s open the .gnus file and modify it to be able to send and receive e-mails. To do this, you will need the SMTP and POP server information that was used for setting up your Evolution account. If you no longer have this information, your e-mail provider’s site will have this information for you.

Once you have opened your .gnus file, move the point to the first available line in the file by using the arrow keys or the C-N key binding (hold down CTRL and press N repeatedly until the point is at the first empty line in the file). Once you have the point in the right place, enter the following code:

(setq smtpmail-smtp-server "smtp.your isp.com")
(setq gnus-secondary-select-methods '((nnml "smtp.your isp.com")))
(setq smtpmail-local-domain "your isp.com")

This will set up Gnus to send mail using the Simple Mail Transport Protocol (SMTP). Where the example reads “your isp.com,” substitute the name of your Internet service provider. Remember, not all providers end in “.com”; some end in “.net.” For instance, if you are using Bell South, you would enter bellsouth.net.

To be able to receive e-mail, you need to define the Post Office Protocol (POP) server that your ISP uses. Once you have this information, you need to add the following line to the .gnus configuration file:

(setq mail-sources '((pop :server "your.pop3server.com" :user "username" )))

Gnus will now download all of your mail into a newsgroup that it creates for you. By opening this newsgroup, you can read through all of your downloaded e-mail. Since you set up the SMTP server settings, you can send e-mail as well by going to the toolbar and selecting Gnus | Send A Message. Once you have typed your message, click the Send This Message icon on the toolbar.

If you find Emacs to be a valuable tool when using your computer, practice with it as much as you can. Many more key bindings and many more tools are available to you in Emacs. The more you use this tool, the easier it gets. Learning the key bindings is like learning a second language, only you don’t have to roll your rrrr’s. Practice, practice, practice, and eventually you will find yourself using the key bindings to navigate through the buffers and frames without having to refer to a cheat sheet of any kind.

In this configuration, you will be asked to provide your password each time you start Gnus. It is possible to modify this line to automatically enter your password for you; however, this is not an advisable practice since anyone with access to your computer would be able to read all of your e-mails.

Source of Information : McGraw Hill Osborne Media How to Do Everything

In addition to writing and modifying text files with Emacs, you can use this application to connect to different news servers and to read postings from the newsgroups housed there. Newsgroups are Internet message boards on a wide variety of topics. When you subscribe to a newsgroup, you can read messages posted by other users and post replies of your own. Basically, it is like a worldwide forum where people can ask questions, find answers, and debate ideas.

Emacs provides you with a built-in news reader called Gnus. To use this, you must first create a configuration file called .gnus that will be saved in your home directory. Of course, we can create that file using Emacs! So let’s open a new file, and we will name it .gnus. In the buffer, enter the following:

(setq gnus-select-method ' (nntp "news.cn99.com"))
(setq user-full-name "yourname")
(setq user-email-address "your email address")

Now write the file to disk using your key bindings.

Now that your server is set up, go to the toolbar and select Tools | Read Net News (Gnus). Emacs will now download the list of newsgroups available to you. This could take some time, so be patient.

Once the groups have been loaded, select Groups | Listing | Describe All Groups. Now you should see a long list of the different groups you can subscribe to, along with a brief description of what each group is all about. Once you find a group or two that you wish to subscribe to, from the toolbar select Groups | Subscribe | Subscribe To A Group. In the message area, Emacs will ask you which group you would like to subscribe to. Type the name of the group and press ENTER, and you will be a new subscriber! When you restart Gnus, you will see all of the groups that you subscribed to (plus a few extras that Gnus thinks you may find interesting). If Gnus is still running, from the toolbar select Buffer | Group, and the Group buffer will open in a new window.

To read the articles in a newsgroup, double-click on the newsgroup name, and you will be presented with a list of articles. Navigate to the article you wish to read and double-click it. You can move to the next article or the previous article by using the navigation arrows on the toolbar. You can also post a response to an article by selecting Post | Reply and then clicking the Send This Message icon from the toolbar.


There are many different news servers that you can choose from. News.cn99.com is one that is used for demonstration purposes, so you can substitute whichever server you like here. It is important to note that news servers often do not censor the groups that they host, so some groups may provide content that you find inappropriate. To avoid this, search for servers that host only groups that you find acceptable, or make sure to monitor the group subscriptions if you have children using this service.


A newsgroup topic is called a thread. A thread is generally started by one person who posts a question or comment; then others reply to this posting. It is considered proper etiquette to keep postings related to the thread. If you have a new topic, start a new thread.
You can navigate among the different threads by selecting the Threads menu from the toolbar and then choosing either Go To Next Thread or Go To Previous Thread.

Source of Information : McGraw Hill Osborne Media How to Do Everything

The Netstat tab provides information on three sets of network data available on the workstation:

• The routing table
• The active network services
• The multicast network information

Ubuntu maintains an internal routing table to keep track of how to forward network packets to remote networks. Selecting the Routing Table radio button then clicking the Netstat button produces a list.

The routing table matches network destinations with a gateway that can send the packets to the remote network. The routing table always includes at least two entries. One entry is the default route, 0.0.0.0. This route defines the gateway to use by default for sending packets to any network on the Internet. Usually this gateway is the IP address of your broadband modem connection.

The other route defines the local network your Ubuntu workstation is connected to. In the example, the workstation is connected to the 10.0.1.0 public network address and uses the default gateway to send packets to this network.

The active network services selection displays a list of what network ports are currently in use on the workstation. Different software packages use different network ports to listen for incoming connections. Many network servers are assigned standard network ports, such as TCP port 80 for web servers and TCP port 25 for email servers.

The network port list includes the current state of the port. TCP uses 11 states to define what mode the network port is in.


TCP Network Port States
LISTEN Waiting for a connection request from a remote client

SYN-SENT Sent a connection acknowledgment and waiting for one in return

SYN-RECEIVED Received a connection acknowledgment from remote client

ESTABLISHED Port is ready to send and receive data with the remote client

FIN-WAIT-1 Sent a connection disconnect request to the remote client

FIN-WAIT-2 Received a connection disconnect from the remote client in response to a connection disconnect request sent by the port

CLOSE-WAIT Remote client initiated a connection disconnect

CLOSING Waiting for a response from a sent connection disconnect request

LAST-ACK Waiting for remote client to acknowledge a connection disconnect request

TIME-WAIT The port is on hold for a preset amount of time after the connection disconnects

CLOSED The connection is officially closed



The TCP states are invaluable for troubleshooting network programs. By checking the network port states, you often can determine whether a remote device is closing a connection early or is keeping a connection open too long.

The final feature of the Netstat tab is the multicast network information. This protocol allows devices to subscribe to special multicast IP addresses on network routers. Network routers handle multicast packets only when they have a device on the network that requests them. This list displays whether the Ubuntu workstation has registered to receive any multicast packets on the network.

Source of Information : Wiley Ubuntu Linux Secrets

If you use a dial-up modem to access the Internet, you’ll have to do some manual configuration to tell Ubuntu how to contact your ISP. This is done using the GNOME PPP application. You’ll first have to manually install the GNOME PPP application using the Synaptic Package Manager before you can use it to connect to your ISP.

Just start Synaptic, search for the GNOME PPP package, mark it for installation, then apply the changes. After installing the GNOME PPP package, follow these steps to configure a PPP session to connect to your ISP:

1. Start the GNOME PPP dialog box by selecting Applications -> Internet -> GNOME PPP from the Panel menu. The main GNOME PPP dialog box.

2. Click the Setup button at the bottom of the dialog box. This opens the Setup dialog box, where you can configure you modem settings.

3. Configure your modem settings in the Modem tab. You must select which port your modem uses to communicate. If Ubuntu automatically detects your modem, it assigns it to the special port /dev/modem. If that doesn’t work, Ubuntu uses /dev/ttyS0 for COM1, /dev/ttyS1 for COM2, and so on.

4. Click the Networking tab to set your IP address information. If your ISP dynamically assigns an IP address to your workstation, select the Dynamic IP Address radio button. If you must specify a static IP address, select the Static IP Address radio button and enter your IP address information in the text boxes. If your ISP uses a static address, you’ll also need to configure the DNS server to use for the network.

5. Click the Options tab to set additional features for the modem connection. You can set the Modem Connection icon to minimize when the connection is established or dock itself on the panel. You can also choose advanced connection features from this page, such as having the modem reconnect if the connection drops.

6. Click the OK button to save the settings.

7. Back in the main GNOME PPP dialog box, enter the information needed to contact your ISP account. You must provide the phone number, plus any special prefixes (such as a 9 to get an outside line). Enter the userID and password provided by your ISP and select the check box if you want GNOME PPP to remember your password.

8. Click the Connect button to initiate the connection to the ISP.

Once you’ve activated your dial-up modem, Ubuntu will attempt to use it to access the Internet via your ISP whenever a network request is made.

Source of Information : Wiley Ubuntu Linux Secrets

These days it seems that everything is going wireless, from ordinary household appliances to gadgets you hook to your cell phone. The computer world is no different. Wireless network connections are becoming more popular as home users search for an easier way to connect multiple computers to a broadband Internet connection.

There are three current standards and one proposed standard in the wireless network card world:

• 802.11a: Provides up to 54 Mbps of data connectivity but has only a 35-meter range.

• 802.11b: Provides only up to 11 Mbps but has a larger range than the 802.11a specification.

• 802.11g: Provides up to 54 Mbps and has a larger range than the 802.11b specification.

• 802.11n (proposed): Provides up to 248 Mbps, with a range of up to 70 meters.


The benefits of the new 802.11n wireless have made it a commercial success, even before
its formal adoption as a network standard. The downside to wireless network cards is that many of them don’t provide drivers for Linux. Ubuntu can detect and use many wireless network cards, but not all of them.


Besides the network type, you also must worry about whether the wireless network is protected by a security system. Wireless networks offer several types of encryption schemes to protect them from unwanted visitors. The most popular encryption schemes used are

• WEP: The wired equivalent privacy protocol is the oldest and least secure encryption scheme. It uses RC4 encryption with either a 64- or 128-bit key. The key is usually entered as a series of hexadecimal digits, often as text characters, to create a password.

• WPA: The Wi-Fi protected access protocol uses the RC4 encryption scheme with a 128-bit key but dynamically changes the key as the system is used. It can be used with a server that provides separate keys to each device on the network or, for less secure environments, it can provide a pre-shared key (PSK) mode in which multiple computers on the network can share the same key.

• WPA2: The second version of the Wi-Fi protected access protocol uses a more secure advanced encryption standard (AES)-based scheme that for now is considered fully secure and not breakable.

You must know the encryption type as well as the password to connect to a wireless network that uses a security scheme. If you happen to find a network that’s not encrypted, Network Manager will automatically connect you.

Source of Information : Wiley Ubuntu Linux Secrets

The DSL modem uses normal telephone lines to communicate to the ISP. However, instead of converting the digital signal to analog, the DSL modem sends a digital signal directly across the telephone line. The telephone line carries both the analog voice signal and the digital signal on the same wires to the telephone provider, which in turn must separate the two signals, connecting the digital signal to its servers and the analog signal to the appropriate telephone exchange equipment.

Your telephone provider must have the proper equipment installed to be able to provide DSL service to your location. Not all areas are converted to support DSL connectivity. Check with your telephone provider to determine whether they support DSL modems in your area.

Three basic types of digital modems can be used on a digital telephone line:

Integrated services digital network (ISDN): The ISDN modem is the oldest technology and is the most sensitive to distance. It offers up to 128 kbps of connectivity speed (more than double the speed of a dial-up modem), provided that the end connection is within 3.4 miles of the telephone exchange equipment. Performance degrades the farther away you are from the telephone exchange, which is one reason why ISDN didn’t catch on all that well.

Symmetric digital subscriber line (SDSL): SDSL provides a constant upload and download speed using the entire bandwidth provided on the telephone line, so it’s not able to share the same line with an analog signal. SDSL lines can provide up to 2,320 kbps of upload and download speeds.

Asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL): ADSL provides a constant upload and download speed but can share the same telephone line with an analog signal, allowing an ADSL modem and a telephone to operate at the same time on the single telephone line. ADSL splits the upload and download speeds, so they don’t have to be the same. This method allows much faster download speeds but at the expense of the upload speeds. ADSL lines can provide download speeds up to 24 megabits per second (Mbps) but usually limit upload speeds to no more than 3.5 Mbps. A typical home ADSL installation provides 8 Mbps of download speed and 1 Mbps of upload speed. For the average home user who downloads videos, music, and Linux distribution ISO files, ADSL is a perfect solution.

The second and third categories of digital modem Internet access is referred to as xDSL. Most xDSL providers distribute a simple DSL modem, which you install by simply plugging it into your normal telephone jack to connect to the telephone company. The DSL modem is usually set to communicate automatically with the telephone system’s ISP.

The DSL modem uses Ethernet to communicate with the workstation. The Ethernet protocol has been a communications standard for decades and is supported by various types of media. The two most popular methods for communicating via Ethernet today are
• Wired Ethernet network cards
• Wireless Ethernet cards

Source of Information : Wiley Ubuntu Linux Secrets