The Answer Guy 29: Getting at MS-Mail from within Linux

#### "Linux Gazette...making Linux just a little more fun!"

# The Answer Guy

#### By James T. Dennis, answerguy@ssc.com
Starshine Technical Services, http://www.starshine.org/

### Getting at MS-Mail from within Linux

#### The Myriad Ways to Co-exist with MS Windows

From Aubrey Pic on 28 Apr 1998
I connect my linux box, at work, to a Netware network. I, also, have Win95 on my box, ONLY to get my LAN mail. Is there any way (or is there a commercial pkg availible) to get my MS-MAIL messages w/out resorting to Win???? I have `ncpfs` running, so I can login & access my Netware account/directory, with no problems. I cringe every time I have to do this.
Aubrey Pic

> I really feel for you there. There are five techniques that come to mind:
> 1. Get an extra cheap box to run Win '95 on. Put the two boxes on a KVM (keyboard, video, mouse) switch box.
>    A bit expensive by some accounts -- but much less than the time you waste rebooted if you amoritize it over a year or two.

> 2. MS-Exchange i (presumably the mail server that your site is using) can be configured to serve e-mail over POP. Essentially your postmaster would set you up with an account that had a local address but was routed as though it were to the Internet. You'd just use '`fetchmail`' to grab your mail.
>    This is probably the easiest and cheapest. However I've never administered an Exchange system --- so I have no idea how difficult this is or what sort of glitches you'll run into (particularly with various "rich text" embellishments that MS-Mail supports and that your associates might therefore use on mail that they consider to be "internal."

> 3. Install an emulator such as Bochs, WINE, Wabi or DOSEmu (which allegedly can run Windows 3.x in standard mode).
>    This is probably the most difficult approach (Wabi isn't too bad -- but it's only 3.x, too) The nice thing is hack value, you show your associates that Linux can run Windows apps.
>    Bochs might be the most impressive, though undoubtedly the slowest. It can apparently run Win '95 under its emulation of a whole system (processor, chipset, video register set, disk controllers the works -- all virtual).

>    http://std.world.com/~bochs | (shareware in source form $25)
>    http://www.winehq.com/ | (free)
>    http://www.suse.com/~dosemu/ | (free)
>    http://www.caldera.com/tech-ref/roadmap.html#wabi | (commercial ~$100 - 200)

> 4. Get a G3 PowerMac and run Connectix Virtual PC under MacOS. (Apple has a special offer to include it free, until June 26.)
>    Well, this is the most expensive and it does sell another copy of Win '95 for Microsoft. But that G3 is fast and should make a great platform for mkLinux and/or LinuxPPC in the next year or so.

> 5. Run a copy of VNC --- with the server on some associate's system and the client on your Linux box. You won't get to read your mail concurrently with them. Or get a Citrix WinFrame server (runs over NT 3.51) and the Java "ICA" client so you can remotely run NT apps from your X desktop.

##### Copyright © 1998, James T. Dennis
Published in Linux Gazette Issue 29 June 1998

versions | lilo | virtdom | kernel | winmodem | basicmail | betterbak
shadow | dell | dumbterm | whylinux | redhat | netcard | macrovir
newlook | tacacs | sendmail | dialdppp | ppp233 | msmail | procmail