Re: Problem with gnus on emacs-26 on debian 10: "Mail source (file) error (Searching for Program)"

[Felix Natter <fnatter@gmx.net>]

hi Steinar,

Steinar Bang <sb@dod.no> writes:
>>>>>> Colin Baxter <m43cap@yandex.com>:
>
>> As I understand things (WARNING: I understand very little.) the current
>> emacs (26.2) configures "--with-mailutils" as a default
>> setting.  Therefore the movemail program is the one from gnus and
>> located (usually) at /usr/bin/movemail. If you build emacs
>> "--without-mailutils" then the movemail program used is the one in the
>> emacs-exec directory (../local/lib/emacs/...) To confuse things further,
>> I believe in past these configure settings were reversed.
>
>> I have configured my emacs explicitly as './configure --with-mailutils'.
>> I therefore  use /usr/bin/movemail as my movemail program and set
>> explicitly as (setq mail-source-movemail-program "/usr/bin/movemail")
>
> Thanks! I'm using the emacs built by debian.  I have no idea what build
> options and/or patches they have used. :-)

Debian 10 has emacs-1:26.1+1-3.2. You can fetch the (packaging) source
with "apt-get source emacs":

$ LANG=C apt-get source emacs
Reading package lists... Done
NOTICE: 'emacs' packaging is maintained in the 'Git' version control system at:
https://salsa.debian.org/rlb/deb-emacs.git
Please use:
git clone https://salsa.debian.org/rlb/deb-emacs.git
to retrieve the latest (possibly unreleased) updates to the package.
Skipping already downloaded file 'emacs_26.1+1-3.2.dsc'
Need to get 24.3 MB of source archives.
Get:1 http://ftp.au.debian.org/debian buster/main emacs 1:26.1+1-3.2 (tar) [24.3 MB]
Get:2 http://ftp.au.debian.org/debian buster/main emacs 1:26.1+1-3.2 (diff) [56.8 kB]
Fetched 24.3 MB in 14s (1795 kB/s)
dpkg-source: info: extracting emacs in emacs-26.1+1
dpkg-source: info: unpacking emacs_26.1+1.orig.tar.xz
dpkg-source: info: unpacking emacs_26.1+1-3.2.debian.tar.xz
dpkg-source: info: using patch list from debian/patches/series
dpkg-source: info: applying 0001-Prefer-usr-share-info-emacs.patch
dpkg-source: info: applying 0002-Run-debian-startup-and-set-debian-emacs-flavor.patch
dpkg-source: info: applying 0003-Remove-files-that-appear-to-be-incompatible-with-the.patch
dpkg-source: info: applying 0004-Adjust-documentation-references-for-Debian.patch
dpkg-source: info: applying 0005-Modify-the-output-of-version-to-indicate-Debian-modi.patch
dpkg-source: info: applying 0006-Don-t-try-to-build-src-macuvs.h-via-IVD_Sequences.tx.patch
dpkg-source: info: applying 0007-Kill-gpg-agent-in-package-test.el-to-avoid-a-race.patch
dpkg-source: info: applying 0008-Don-t-downcase-real-xref-in-elisp-mode-tests.patch
dpkg-source: info: applying 0009-An-epg-test-failure-with-recent-GnuPG-versions-has-b.patch
dpkg-source: info: applying 0010-Mark-vc-bzr-test-fauilt-bzr-autoloads-as-unstable-fo.patch
dpkg-source: info: applying 0011-tramp-test42-remote-load-path-regexp-quote-directory.patch
dpkg-source: info: applying 0012-ibuffer-filter-inclusion-3-regexp-quote-directory.patch
dpkg-source: info: applying 0013-Mark-echo-server-with-dns-test-as-unstable-for-now.patch
dpkg-source: info: applying 0014-Fix-an-eshell-ls-dired-test-for-non-recent-files.patch

As you can see, quite a few patches are applied (they can be seen in
emacs-26.1+1/debian/patches). Also, from emacs-26.1+1/debian/rules:

# common configure flags
confflags += --prefix=/usr
confflags += --sharedstatedir=/var/lib
confflags += --libexecdir=/usr/lib
confflags += --localstatedir=/var/lib
confflags += --infodir=/usr/share/info
confflags += --mandir=/usr/share/man
confflags += --enable-libsystemd
confflags += --with-pop=yes
confflags += --enable-locallisppath=$(local_lpath)
confflags += --with-sound=alsa
confflags += --without-gconf
confflags += --with-mailutils

# x configure flags
confflags_gtk := $(confflags)
confflags_gtk += --with-x=yes
confflags_gtk += --with-x-toolkit=gtk3
# For those who prefer the old-style non-toolkit scrollbars, just
# change the assignment below to --without-toolkit-scroll-bars.  The
# resulting emacs-gtk package will have the old scrollbars.
confflags_gtk += --with-toolkit-scroll-bars

# nox configure flags
confflags_nox := $(confflags)
confflags_nox += --with-x=no
confflags_nox += --without-gsettings

# lucid configure flags
confflags_lucid := $(confflags)
confflags_lucid += --with-x=yes
confflags_lucid += --with-x-toolkit=lucid
confflags_lucid += --with-toolkit-scroll-bars
confflags_lucid += --without-gsettings

See --with-mailutils above.

HTH,
Felix
--
Felix Natter