Alpine 2.00 for OS/2 (C) 2006-2008 The University of Washington. OS/2 Port by Nicholas Sheppard (nps@zeta.org.au) CLIENT INSTALLATION =================== Before Installing Alpine ------------------------ Alpine also depends on some other packages, which you may already have installed. You need to install: * The EMX run-time libraries. Alpine is compiled with version 0.9d, fix 04. * Possibly, the ncurses terminal information database. Refer to "Screen Handling" below. Refer to those packages for installation instructions. Before Running Alpine -------------------- Set up the following environment variables: * HOME, pointing to the "home directory" of a user * either TMP or TEMP, pointing to a directory for temporary files See the screen handling section also for information on setting up ncurses and character sets. Before Using Alpine ------------------- Set up your mail and news configuration. You can do this by manually editing the "pinerc" file in the HOME directory (Alpine will create a new one the first time you run Alpine, if it doesn't exist), or by going Setup ("S") then Config ("C") from the main menu. To get anywhere, you need to set: * personal-name: the name to be attached to out-going e-mails * user-id: the part of your e-mail address before the @ * user-domain: the part of your e-mail address after the @ * smtp-server: your SMTP server * inbox-path: your mail server (e.g. `mail.yourisp.net') IMAP: {mail.yourisp.net}inbox POP3: {mail.yourisp.net/pop3}inbox File: the name of your local mail file You may also want/need to set: * nntp-server: your news server * display-character-set: the character set used by your display (see below) * keyboard-character-set: the character set used by your keyboard (see below) There are many other options you can set. Alpine has extensive on-line help for all of the options (press "?" on the configuration screen when the cursor is on the appropriate field) which should get you through this process. Notes for Upgrading from Pine ----------------------------- Alpine uses the same configuration file and format as Pine, and, if you have used Pine before, your existing configuration will be rolled over into Alpine. There are some configuration options that might need special attention, including: Colours: Alpine introduces many new colour options and the defaults for new colours may combine in strange ways with your existing colours. If your screen appears strange, check your colour configuration carefully. Character Sets: Alpine's new internationalisation features require you to set up character sets for your keyboard and display. See the "Character Sets" notes below. SCREEN HANDLING =============== ncurses ------- If you do not have the ncurses terminal information database installed, you can probably get away with using the entries supplied in the terminfo sub-directory of the Al[pine distribution. You need to set the TERMINFO environment variable to point to this directory, and the TERM variable to either `os2' (for a VIO window) or `xterm' (for an xterm), e.g. SET TERMINFO=c:\programs\alpine\terminfo SET TERM=os2 Note that the value of TERM is case-sensitive (e.g. `OS2' will not work). VIO windows should have ANSI on. The `os2' entry packaged with Alpine (which is just `ansi' with the `bce' flag set to true) is the best entry I have been able to find for VIO windows; all other entries that I have tried have various deficiencies. Note: Alpine does not paint the cell at the bottom right of the screen as doing so causes VIO windows to scroll. Character Sets -------------- Alpine uses UTF-8 internally and converts text from the keyboard and on the display according to the character used by the window in which Alpine is running, as specified by the "Keyboard Character Set" and "Display Character Set" and variables in Pine's configuration screen. Help text and mail messages may be displayed incorrectly if these options are not set to the correct values. The default is UTF-8. If you are running Alpine in a VIO window, you'll probably need to set the above options to one of the OS/2 codepages, known as "IBM437", "IBM850", and so on. You can run "chcp" in a VIO window to find out which codepage your window is using. If you are running Alpine in an xterm, you might need to use the ISO character sets ISO-8859-1, ISO-8859-2, etc. If you are running Alpine in a uxterm, you can use the default UTF-8 character set. SSL === There is still a lot of uncharted territory in using SSL with OS/2 Alpine. I've compiled the OpenSSL code from the Unix version of Alpine into the OS/2 version but it has not been extensively tested under OS/2. If you're only interested in encryption of the connection between Alpine and your mail server, append `/ssl/novalidate-cert' to the name of the mail server's name in your inbox path, e.g. inbox-path={mail.yourisp.net/ssl/novalidate-cert}inbox If you want to validate your server's certificate, you are in for an adventure. You will probably need to get a hold of the full OpenSSL distribution, which has the root server certificates and the `openssl' utility for managing your certificates. Certificates should be stored in \usr\local\ssl\certs on the current drive (this is defined by OpenSSL). You can get information about OpenSSL for OS/2 from Brian Havard's web site at http://silk.apana.org.au/apache/apache-ssl.html Tips on setting up Alpine with OpenSSL (from a Unix user) are available from the Pine+SSL HOWTO at http://www.madboa.com/geek/pine-ssl KNOWN BUGS ========== * printing by piping to a command doesn't work