Based on kernel version 2.6.26. Page generated on 2008-07-16 21:12 EST.
1 Email clients info for Linux 2 ====================================================================== 3 4 General Preferences 5 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 6 Patches for the Linux kernel are submitted via email, preferably as 7 inline text in the body of the email. Some maintainers accept 8 attachments, but then the attachments should have content-type 9 "text/plain". However, attachments are generally frowned upon because 10 it makes quoting portions of the patch more difficult in the patch 11 review process. 12 13 Email clients that are used for Linux kernel patches should send the 14 patch text untouched. For example, they should not modify or delete tabs 15 or spaces, even at the beginning or end of lines. 16 17 Don't send patches with "format=flowed". This can cause unexpected 18 and unwanted line breaks. 19 20 Don't let your email client do automatic word wrapping for you. 21 This can also corrupt your patch. 22 23 Email clients should not modify the character set encoding of the text. 24 Emailed patches should be in ASCII or UTF-8 encoding only. 25 If you configure your email client to send emails with UTF-8 encoding, 26 you avoid some possible charset problems. 27 28 Email clients should generate and maintain References: or In-Reply-To: 29 headers so that mail threading is not broken. 30 31 Copy-and-paste (or cut-and-paste) usually does not work for patches 32 because tabs are converted to spaces. Using xclipboard, xclip, and/or 33 xcutsel may work, but it's best to test this for yourself or just avoid 34 copy-and-paste. 35 36 Don't use PGP/GPG signatures in mail that contains patches. 37 This breaks many scripts that read and apply the patches. 38 (This should be fixable.) 39 40 It's a good idea to send a patch to yourself, save the received message, 41 and successfully apply it with 'patch' before sending patches to Linux 42 mailing lists. 43 44 45 Some email client (MUA) hints 46 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 47 Here are some specific MUA configuration hints for editing and sending 48 patches for the Linux kernel. These are not meant to be complete 49 software package configuration summaries. 50 51 Legend: 52 TUI = text-based user interface 53 GUI = graphical user interface 54 55 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 56 Alpine (TUI) 57 58 Config options: 59 In the "Sending Preferences" section: 60 61 - "Do Not Send Flowed Text" must be enabled 62 - "Strip Whitespace Before Sending" must be disabled 63 64 When composing the message, the cursor should be placed where the patch 65 should appear, and then pressing CTRL-R let you specify the patch file 66 to insert into the message. 67 68 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 69 Evolution (GUI) 70 71 Some people use this successfully for patches. 72 73 When composing mail select: Preformat 74 from Format->Heading->Preformatted (Ctrl-7) 75 or the toolbar 76 77 Then use: 78 Insert->Text File... (Alt-n x) 79 to insert the patch. 80 81 You can also "diff -Nru old.c new.c | xclip", select Preformat, then 82 paste with the middle button. 83 84 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 85 Kmail (GUI) 86 87 Some people use Kmail successfully for patches. 88 89 The default setting of not composing in HTML is appropriate; do not 90 enable it. 91 92 When composing an email, under options, uncheck "word wrap". The only 93 disadvantage is any text you type in the email will not be word-wrapped 94 so you will have to manually word wrap text before the patch. The easiest 95 way around this is to compose your email with word wrap enabled, then save 96 it as a draft. Once you pull it up again from your drafts it is now hard 97 word-wrapped and you can uncheck "word wrap" without losing the existing 98 wrapping. 99 100 At the bottom of your email, put the commonly-used patch delimiter before 101 inserting your patch: three hyphens (---). 102 103 Then from the "Message" menu item, select insert file and choose your patch. 104 As an added bonus you can customise the message creation toolbar menu 105 and put the "insert file" icon there. 106 107 You can safely GPG sign attachments, but inlined text is preferred for 108 patches so do not GPG sign them. Signing patches that have been inserted 109 as inlined text will make them tricky to extract from their 7-bit encoding. 110 111 If you absolutely must send patches as attachments instead of inlining 112 them as text, right click on the attachment and select properties, and 113 highlight "Suggest automatic display" to make the attachment inlined to 114 make it more viewable. 115 116 When saving patches that are sent as inlined text, select the email that 117 contains the patch from the message list pane, right click and select 118 "save as". You can use the whole email unmodified as a patch if it was 119 properly composed. There is no option currently to save the email when you 120 are actually viewing it in its own window -- there has been a request filed 121 at kmail's bugzilla and hopefully this will be addressed. Emails are saved 122 as read-write for user only so you will have to chmod them to make them 123 group and world readable if you copy them elsewhere. 124 125 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 126 Lotus Notes (GUI) 127 128 Run away from it. 129 130 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 131 Mutt (TUI) 132 133 Plenty of Linux developers use mutt, so it must work pretty well. 134 135 Mutt doesn't come with an editor, so whatever editor you use should be 136 used in a way that there are no automatic linebreaks. Most editors have 137 an "insert file" option that inserts the contents of a file unaltered. 138 139 To use 'vim' with mutt: 140 set editor="vi" 141 142 If using xclip, type the command 143 :set paste 144 before middle button or shift-insert or use 145 :r filename 146 147 if you want to include the patch inline. 148 (a)ttach works fine without "set paste". 149 150 Config options: 151 It should work with default settings. 152 However, it's a good idea to set the "send_charset" to: 153 set send_charset="us-ascii:utf-8" 154 155 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 156 Pine (TUI) 157 158 Pine has had some whitespace truncation issues in the past, but these 159 should all be fixed now. 160 161 Use alpine (pine's successor) if you can. 162 163 Config options: 164 - quell-flowed-text is needed for recent versions 165 - the "no-strip-whitespace-before-send" option is needed 166 167 168 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 169 Sylpheed (GUI) 170 171 - Works well for inlining text (or using attachments). 172 - Allows use of an external editor. 173 - Is slow on large folders. 174 - Won't do TLS SMTP auth over a non-SSL connection. 175 - Has a helpful ruler bar in the compose window. 176 - Adding addresses to address book doesn't understand the display name 177 properly. 178 179 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 180 Thunderbird (GUI) 181 182 By default, thunderbird likes to mangle text, but there are ways to 183 coerce it into being nice. 184 185 - Under account settings, composition and addressing, uncheck "Compose 186 messages in HTML format". 187 188 - Edit your Thunderbird config settings to tell it not to wrap lines: 189 user_pref("mailnews.wraplength", 0); 190 191 - Edit your Thunderbird config settings so that it won't use format=flowed: 192 user_pref("mailnews.send_plaintext_flowed", false); 193 194 - You need to get Thunderbird into preformat mode: 195 . If you compose HTML messages by default, it's not too hard. Just select 196 "Preformat" from the drop-down box just under the subject line. 197 . If you compose in text by default, you have to tell it to compose a new 198 message in HTML (just as a one-off), and then force it from there back to 199 text, else it will wrap lines. To do this, use shift-click on the Write 200 icon to compose to get HTML compose mode, then select "Preformat" from 201 the drop-down box just under the subject line. 202 203 - Allows use of an external editor: 204 The easiest thing to do with Thunderbird and patches is to use an 205 "external editor" extension and then just use your favorite $EDITOR 206 for reading/merging patches into the body text. To do this, download 207 and install the extension, then add a button for it using 208 View->Toolbars->Customize... and finally just click on it when in the 209 Compose dialog. 210 211 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 212 TkRat (GUI) 213 214 Works. Use "Insert file..." or external editor. 215 216 ###
