[comp.mail.misc] GNU's rmail trying to rename /usr/mail/$USER

obg@diab.UUCP (Olof Backing) (01/12/88)

When I start GNUemacs for reading mail, I always get an error saying
that it can't rename '/usr/mail/$USER to /usr/mail/$USER~'. I've
looked in the lisp-code to see what's going on, and since I'm not that
experienced lisp-programmer, I can only guess what rmail is doing.
What I can see have rmail two alternatives; either to rename the
inbox-file or to move it to $USER. How do I make rmail to choose the
latter alternative?

Another questions comes to mind. This machine is hooked on to the
network in the house. But this is not the machine that is connected to
USENET. Soo far have I managed to send mail by specifying the
USENET-connected machine in the address. Since they aren't using UUCP
on the local net but SMTP, I think that this is the only way to do it.
Another anoying thing is that SMTP is the writer of all mail due to
the fact that it's sending the mail the the USENET-machine. How do I
get around this problem?

In hope for as many answers as possible, I can only keep on consuming
CPU-time and disk-space.