[gentoo-user] [OT] Using mutt instead of kmail

[Mick <michaelkintzios@gmail.com>]

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Hi All,

There are a few mutt users here so I thought of asking here first.

I've tried setting up mutt to use as a mail client instead of kmail.

Having spent some time now I am not sure it will do what I expect of a mail 
client, at least not with the ease that I hoped.

The basic requirements for my typical use cases are to be able to handle 
gpg/pgp and s/mime signed and occasionally encrypted messages and to auto-
complete addresses.

I have several different s/mime certificates and gpg keys for two different mail 
accounts.  Of course only one certificate for each account is valid at any time 
(the others are expired or revoked) and only one gpg public/private key pair.

However, the old keys are still necessary and available in my system to be 
able to decrypt old emails that I have received over the years.

With kmail I do not have to specify gpg keys, or certificate IDs, to be able to 
decrypt messages.  The mail client itself reads the key/certificate and calls 
gpgsm/kgpg which asks for my passphrase.

Also, when I want to send an encrypted message it knows from the Crypto 
settings of the recipient in the Address Book which public key/certificate to 
use to encrypt a message.  if the recipient has both gpg and s/mime 
certificates available in the Address Book it asks me which to use on each 
occasion.

Finally, kmail has an auto-completion feature for the recipient address and it 
suggests as I type the person to send to.  Down arrow and enter is all that I 
need to press.


Unlike kmail, with mutt I can't even start using certificates because I am 
getting errors importing SSL certs like these:

3075245704:error:0D0680A8:asn1 encoding routines:ASN1_CHECK_TLEN:wrong 
tag:tasn_dec.c:1319:
3075245704:error:0D07803A:asn1 encoding routines:ASN1_ITEM_EX_D2I:nested asn1 
error:tasn_dec.c:381:Type=PKCS12

Mutt asks for s/mime ID Nos, on each message, which with the number of 
certificates that I have amassed over the years I do not happen to have at hand 
and it is a pain to type manually each time.

Mutt also does not seem to auto-complete any addresses.  It uses aliases, but 
that implies that I must set up such aliases and use these every time I want 
to enter a particular address.  This creates the problem of having to remember 
each and every alias, rather than typing "fre" and getting a list of Freds, 
Freddies,  Frederics, etc. or part of the Surname, or part of the email 
address itself.

The other difficulty is the key shortcuts in mutt do not behave as I would like 
them to, but this is that something I could recode so less of a problem.

Is there anything that I could do to automate the digital signing and 
encryption to a level similar to kmail and the auto-completion of email 
addresses?
-- 
Regards,
Mick

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