Configuring/compiling gbuffy on modern Debian systems.

[A. F. Cano]

On Mon, Aug 28, 2017 at 01:24:40AM +0000, Duncan wrote:
> ...

> And there's all sorts of other mail notifiers available, so the question 
> is, why are you trying to install something that old, unsupported, 
> security-vulnerable and inconvenient to install, when there are so many 
> other alternatives available?  What's so special about gbuffy that you 
> /must/ use it instead of some other alternative that's still available in 
> your distro's repo for a far simpler install?

It was exactly what I wanted.  A simple list of buttons that I can have
in a corner of the desktop and when I click the one that represents the
list I want to read it launches a konsole window with mutt in it.

> FWIW, the gbuffy descriptions I could google said similar to xbiff/
> xbuffy.  On gentoo (which I use) simply doing a package search, including 

I've installed or looked over all the packages you mentioned, but only
xbuffy gives me that interface, so it looks like that's what I'll have
to go with, even though the font looks horrendous compared to gbuffy,
the config file is totally different and I'm still having issues getting
it to behave the way gbuffy did.  Some of the issues really look like
bugs, such as starting mutt in send mode in some cases, even when given
a mailbox file or doing the same when what it should do is open the main
incoming mailbox.  I'll have to make sure it's not an issue with my
config file before filing bug reports.

> description, on "biff", returns a number of alternatives, some console, 
> some X-based.  Debian is said to have a larger package repo than most 
> distros so it's likely to have these and more:
> 
> * kbiff (kde-based, making it the actual on-topic one =:^)

Interestingly, this one is not in Debian.

> * gnubiff (gtk3-based, with a gtk2-based version also available, likely 
> the most direct actually still available in the repo alternative to 
> gbuffy)

The gnubiff window is way too big and obtrusive to keep open.

> * xbiff
> * hap (terminal-based biff replacement)
> * asmail (similar to xbiff, so X-based)
> * wmbiff (windowmaker dock applet)

All these don't have the simple one-button-per-mailbox interface I want.

> ...

In any case, thanks for replying.  I'll keep trying to configure xbuffy
to behave like gbuffy did.

Augustine