1Email clients info for Linux 2====================================================================== 3 4General Preferences 5---------------------------------------------------------------------- 6Patches for the Linux kernel are submitted via email, preferably as 7inline text in the body of the email. Some maintainers accept 8attachments, but then the attachments should have content-type 9"text/plain". However, attachments are generally frowned upon because 10it makes quoting portions of the patch more difficult in the patch 11review process. 12 13Email clients that are used for Linux kernel patches should send the 14patch text untouched. For example, they should not modify or delete tabs 15or spaces, even at the beginning or end of lines. 16 17Don't send patches with "format=flowed". This can cause unexpected 18and unwanted line breaks. 19 20Don't let your email client do automatic word wrapping for you. 21This can also corrupt your patch. 22 23Email clients should not modify the character set encoding of the text. 24Emailed patches should be in ASCII or UTF-8 encoding only. 25If you configure your email client to send emails with UTF-8 encoding, 26you avoid some possible charset problems. 27 28Email clients should generate and maintain References: or In-Reply-To: 29headers so that mail threading is not broken. 30 31Copy-and-paste (or cut-and-paste) usually does not work for patches 32because tabs are converted to spaces. Using xclipboard, xclip, and/or 33xcutsel may work, but it's best to test this for yourself or just avoid 34copy-and-paste. 35 36Don't use PGP/GPG signatures in mail that contains patches. 37This breaks many scripts that read and apply the patches. 38(This should be fixable.) 39 40It's a good idea to send a patch to yourself, save the received message, 41and successfully apply it with 'patch' before sending patches to Linux 42mailing lists. 43 44 45Some email client (MUA) hints 46---------------------------------------------------------------------- 47Here are some specific MUA configuration hints for editing and sending 48patches for the Linux kernel. These are not meant to be complete 49software package configuration summaries. 50 51Legend: 52TUI = text-based user interface 53GUI = graphical user interface 54 55~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 56Alpine (TUI) 57 58Config options: 59In the "Sending Preferences" section: 60 61- "Do Not Send Flowed Text" must be enabled 62- "Strip Whitespace Before Sending" must be disabled 63 64When composing the message, the cursor should be placed where the patch 65should appear, and then pressing CTRL-R let you specify the patch file 66to insert into the message. 67 68~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 69Evolution (GUI) 70 71Some people use this successfully for patches. 72 73When composing mail select: Preformat 74 from Format->Heading->Preformatted (Ctrl-7) 75 or the toolbar 76 77Then use: 78 Insert->Text File... (Alt-n x) 79to insert the patch. 80 81You can also "diff -Nru old.c new.c | xclip", select Preformat, then 82paste with the middle button. 83 84~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 85Kmail (GUI) 86 87Some people use Kmail successfully for patches. 88 89The default setting of not composing in HTML is appropriate; do not 90enable it. 91 92When composing an email, under options, uncheck "word wrap". The only 93disadvantage is any text you type in the email will not be word-wrapped 94so you will have to manually word wrap text before the patch. The easiest 95way around this is to compose your email with word wrap enabled, then save 96it as a draft. Once you pull it up again from your drafts it is now hard 97word-wrapped and you can uncheck "word wrap" without losing the existing 98wrapping. 99 100At the bottom of your email, put the commonly-used patch delimiter before 101inserting your patch: three hyphens (---). 102 103Then from the "Message" menu item, select insert file and choose your patch. 104As an added bonus you can customise the message creation toolbar menu 105and put the "insert file" icon there. 106 107You can safely GPG sign attachments, but inlined text is preferred for 108patches so do not GPG sign them. Signing patches that have been inserted 109as inlined text will make them tricky to extract from their 7-bit encoding. 110 111If you absolutely must send patches as attachments instead of inlining 112them as text, right click on the attachment and select properties, and 113highlight "Suggest automatic display" to make the attachment inlined to 114make it more viewable. 115 116When saving patches that are sent as inlined text, select the email that 117contains the patch from the message list pane, right click and select 118"save as". You can use the whole email unmodified as a patch if it was 119properly composed. There is no option currently to save the email when you 120are actually viewing it in its own window -- there has been a request filed 121at kmail's bugzilla and hopefully this will be addressed. Emails are saved 122as read-write for user only so you will have to chmod them to make them 123group and world readable if you copy them elsewhere. 124 125~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 126Lotus Notes (GUI) 127 128Run away from it. 129 130~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 131Mutt (TUI) 132 133Plenty of Linux developers use mutt, so it must work pretty well. 134 135Mutt doesn't come with an editor, so whatever editor you use should be 136used in a way that there are no automatic linebreaks. Most editors have 137an "insert file" option that inserts the contents of a file unaltered. 138 139To use 'vim' with mutt: 140 set editor="vi" 141 142 If using xclip, type the command 143 :set paste 144 before middle button or shift-insert or use 145 :r filename 146 147if you want to include the patch inline. 148(a)ttach works fine without "set paste". 149 150Config options: 151It should work with default settings. 152However, it's a good idea to set the "send_charset" to: 153 set send_charset="us-ascii:utf-8" 154 155~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 156Pine (TUI) 157 158Pine has had some whitespace truncation issues in the past, but these 159should all be fixed now. 160 161Use alpine (pine's successor) if you can. 162 163Config options: 164- quell-flowed-text is needed for recent versions 165- the "no-strip-whitespace-before-send" option is needed 166 167 168~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 169Sylpheed (GUI) 170 171- Works well for inlining text (or using attachments). 172- Allows use of an external editor. 173- Is slow on large folders. 174- Won't do TLS SMTP auth over a non-SSL connection. 175- Has a helpful ruler bar in the compose window. 176- Adding addresses to address book doesn't understand the display name 177 properly. 178 179~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 180Thunderbird (GUI) 181 182By default, thunderbird likes to mangle text, but there are ways to 183coerce it into being nice. 184 185- Under account settings, composition and addressing, uncheck "Compose 186 messages in HTML format". 187 188- Edit your Thunderbird config settings to tell it not to wrap lines: 189 user_pref("mailnews.wraplength", 0); 190 191- Edit your Thunderbird config settings so that it won't use format=flowed: 192 user_pref("mailnews.send_plaintext_flowed", false); 193 194- You need to get Thunderbird into preformat mode: 195. If you compose HTML messages by default, it's not too hard. Just select 196 "Preformat" from the drop-down box just under the subject line. 197. If you compose in text by default, you have to tell it to compose a new 198 message in HTML (just as a one-off), and then force it from there back to 199 text, else it will wrap lines. To do this, use shift-click on the Write 200 icon to compose to get HTML compose mode, then select "Preformat" from 201 the drop-down box just under the subject line. 202 203- Allows use of an external editor: 204 The easiest thing to do with Thunderbird and patches is to use an 205 "external editor" extension and then just use your favorite $EDITOR 206 for reading/merging patches into the body text. To do this, download 207 and install the extension, then add a button for it using 208 View->Toolbars->Customize... and finally just click on it when in the 209 Compose dialog. 210 211~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 212TkRat (GUI) 213 214Works. Use "Insert file..." or external editor. 215 216~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 217Gmail (Web GUI) 218 219If you just have to use Gmail to send patches, it CAN be made to work. It 220requires a bit of external help, though. 221 222The first problem is that Gmail converts tabs to spaces. This will 223totally break your patches. To prevent this, you have to use a different 224editor. There is a firefox extension called "ViewSourceWith" 225(https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/394) which allows you to 226edit any text box in the editor of your choice. Configure it to launch 227your favorite editor. When you want to send a patch, use this technique. 228Once you have crafted your messsage + patch, save and exit the editor, 229which should reload the Gmail edit box. GMAIL WILL PRESERVE THE TABS. 230Hoorah. Apparently you can cut-n-paste literal tabs, but Gmail will 231convert those to spaces upon sending! 232 233The second problem is that Gmail converts tabs to spaces on replies. If 234you reply to a patch, don't expect to be able to apply it as a patch. 235 236The last problem is that Gmail will base64-encode any message that has a 237non-ASCII character. That includes things like European names. Be aware. 238 239Gmail is not convenient for lkml patches, but CAN be made to work. 240 241 ### 242