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Unixmail for Windows is a package of unix mail tools ported to MS Windows (Win32), and bundled together with an easy-to-use installer. The bundle currently includes fetchmail, mutt, aspell/pspell, sSMTP, and GnuPG. The existance of this project in effect turns these tools into a cross-platfrom email system.

Purpose:

The purpose of this package is to ease the pain of unix-lovers forced to live in a Microsoft environment. For now, this means providing an easy-to-install package of basic unix mail tools.

There are several benefits to using ports of exiting unix tools instead of building a new mail system specifically for windows. First, it means even an immature project like this one can provide and amazing set of features. Second, it means you can use the muttrc and vimrc files that you have already worked hard to get Just Perfect. And finally, you can feel confidant that the file formats used are open and well-understood.

Hopefully this package will soon have procmail, abook, some sort of biff, etc. Perhaps eventually it will even include real integration with MS apps, like calendars and such.

Design:

The source package contains a framework into which you can drop unix tool tarballs. Then this Unixmail for Windows framework will configure, build, and install these tools into a binary directory tree. The installer is a snapshot of this point in the build process. Finally, a TcL/TK script (with some Perl at the backend) helps build configuration files for all of the tools so that they will work together under Windows, and will conform to your environment.

Since the build process makes few assumtions about which version of each tool you have, it should be simple to keep this build up-to-date with the unix tool sources.

Status:

Version 0.6 provides a complete email path: polling a POP server with fetchmail, reading mail with mutt, and sending mail to an external SMTP server. Gnu Privacy Guard (GnuPG) is also included to allow encrypting, decrypting, signing, and verifying signatures. The pspell/aspell spelling-checker package is now also included. A TCL/TK script is included to assist in installation and adding users.