How to install Pegasus Email Client on FreeBSD

Has anyone here had success installing Pegasus Mail e-mail client on FreeBSD?

I have been using Pegasus Mail for many years and would reeeeeely rather not try to find and use another e-mail client. I tried Thunderbird, and don't care for it. I have not yet tried to use Sendmail on my present 13.2-RELEASE setup, but do remember using it many years ago while I was a SYSAD at the University of Idaho. I didn't care much for it then either.

I know that one must install WINE in order to use apps like Pegasus since it is primarily a Windoze app, so I have installed WINE and gotten it to work OK, (although I probably need to tweak it a bit more.)

So far, I cannot get Pegasus to run and don't know what else to do to get it to work.

Also, I am not even sure at this point if I am posting this to the correct part of the forum.

Can anyone help with this?

Ken Gordon
 
I don't understand how sendmail fits in a thread about "mail clients" (MUAs)? :-/ Sendmail is an MTA (transporting mail, not reading/composing it).

About Pegasus, as I never tried it, all I can say is that wine works pretty well for me in general. If you have a specific win32 program that doesn't work, I'd suggest you give some details about how you installed and setup wine, how you installed this windows software, how you're attempting to run it, and then also check wine's console output (it's pretty verbose, but might also contain hints about what the actual error/problem is).

And of course, there are so many mail clients available, maybe it's still worthwhile to test a few? It would certainly ease your life a bit if you could just use some native FreeBSD program for that 😉
 
Pegasus seems to be ancient... The last Windows version they mention as working/tested is Vista, and that it should work on Windows 7. Especially for something like a MUA this should raise just about every red flag...
I'd *highly* recommend leaving that thing behind. If you want a lightweight and fast MUA with GUI, try mail/claws-mail


OTOH: given it is such an ancient piece of 32bit software, Pegasus should run just fine with Wine. Just make sure to install the missing 32bit packages (you will get an info about that including the script you have to run if they are missing)
 
I don't understand how sendmail fits in a thread about "mail clients" (MUAs)? :-/ Sendmail is an MTA (transporting mail, not reading/composing it).{/quote]
You are correct, of course. I meant PINE (Pine Is Not Elm). I will be 81 on the 23rd of this month, and my memory isn't as quick as it once was. In any case, although I used PINE I was not happy with it.

A certain level of kindness and a bit of understanding on your part would go a long way towards smooth transactions here, don't you think? ;)

About Pegasus, as I never tried it, all I can say is that wine works pretty well for me in general. If you have a specific win32 program that doesn't work, I'd suggest you give some details about how you installed and setup wine, how you installed this windows software, how you're attempting to run it, and then also check wine's console output (it's pretty verbose, but might also contain hints about what the actual error/problem is).{/quote]

Well, it has been awhile since I installed both WINE (which DOES work quite well for me) and attempted to install Pegasus. The problem is within Pegasus, not WINE anyway. I tried to use Thunderbird from the ports, but it has issues that I don't care for. Besides, it is no longer supported by Mozilla.

I know Pegasus is "old" although the latest version was only published this month. David Harris, who built it and is its sole supporter (for free, I might add) has been supporting Pegasus for quite a long time: 15 years at least, I believe. In any case it has been voted to be the best e-mail client available by some group which determines those sorts of things. Very recently, David Harris said he plans to go Open Source in the very near future.

And of course, there are so many mail clients available, maybe it's still worthwhile to test a few? It would certainly ease your life a bit if you could just use some native FreeBSD program for that 😉
Yes, there are quite a number of them, that's for sure. However, I have tried quite a lot of those in my attempt to build a FreeBSD desktop to replace Billy Gates' crap for the other members (specifically my lovely wife, who although she has many, many good qualities, is the premier computo-klutz of the world) of my family. I thoroughly despise Outlook, for example. We have used Pegasus for close to 15 years, and are quite familiar with it.

So far, nothing beats Pegasus for ease of use, and its other capabilities.

Anyway, thanks for your input. I will take a much closer look at WINE and see if it reports anything about any issues with Pegasus.

I will repeat: I believe this forum is the very best forum I have ever been connected with. The level of help here is phenomenally good.

Ken Gordon
 
Pegasus seems to be ancient... The last Windows version they mention as working/tested is Vista, and that it should work on Windows 7. Especially for something like a MUA this should raise just about every red flag...
I'd *highly* recommend leaving that thing behind. If you want a lightweight and fast MUA with GUI, try mail/claws-mail


OTOH: given it is such an ancient piece of 32bit software, Pegasus should run just fine with Wine. Just make sure to install the missing 32bit packages (you will get an info about that including the script you have to run if they are missing)
Actually, it is not "ancient". David Harris, who first published it some 15 years ago, and is the sole (free) support for it, published his latest update for it only recently. It works just fine in Windoze 10. I thought his latest version was published in April of this year, but someone else mentioned January 2023, so I am probably wrong. In any case, he announced recently that he intends to go Open Source with it soon.

Others are using Pegasus with some form of Unix. I was hoping that someone here was using it specifically with FreeBSD. Thus my question here.

Thanks all.

Ken Gordon
 
A certain level of kindness and a bit of understanding on your part would go a long way towards smooth transactions here, don't you think? ;)
I beg your pardon? :rolleyes: All I did was ask why you mentioned sendmail in this context (and explain what it is and what it isn't). So, this is sorted out now. Still makes sense to ask this, after all, it could also have been some fundamental misunderstanding which would require more explanations. So, that's not "kind"?

Anyways, on topic: I hope you take no offense from this recommendation: Please just describe your problem. Rationale: Even if someone on here would actually use Pegasus with Wine on FreeBSD, this won't guarantee they would have a solution for you. And the other way around, it's certainly possible to have an idea even when not using that specific software. So, not much to lose just going a bit into detail ;)

Just a word on which MUA is "the best", that's subjective on a similar level as the "vi vs emacs" discussion – That's why I didn't even bother to recommend one (I'd personally never want to use anything other than mail/neomutt 😏, so here it comes, lol), but just mentioned there are really many. So just maybe, you can find one that matches your needs. It's always "easier" to go with native, packaged software, that's all ....
 
You are right, of course. Sometimes I feel a great kinship to Rich Purnell when it comes to interactions with other folks. Sorry.

OK. I'll give your favorite e-mail client a try with my FreeBSD box. And you are most certainly correct about going with "packaged software". However, I also will learn a lot if I can get Pegasus to work with FreeBSD. As far as I am concerned, if I don't learn something new every day, I might was well lay down and "quit".

Ken Gordon
 
OK. I'll give your favorite e-mail client a try with my FreeBSD box.
Uhm, it was specifically not a recommendation, just couldn't resist mentioning it now. It's another console-based MUA in the tradition of Elm, so it has quite some learning curve, but IMHO that pays off, as it can be used very efficiently. But as I said, a VERY subjective matter.
However, I also will learn a lot if I can get Pegasus to work with FreeBSD.
Of course, and there's certainly nothing wrong with that. Wine exists for a reason ;)

I just still think: Give details about how it doesn't work for you. Maybe that's wasted time, but maybe someone on here will have an idea that actually helps, so, why not?
 
KenGordon you got excellent recommendations for a GUI email client which is claws and for a TUI client which is neomutt.
If you do not have other use for using wine I'd vote against it only for this single email thing.
Do whatever you like, you have two superb choices in the case you fail with wine. IMO it's not worth all the trouble.
 
Agreed. I'll have to do some digging here, as soon as I can, to get the info you people are asking about what problem I am specifically having. I am terribly slow with things like this lately,

Ken
 
How do you try to run the program?

I have it set up on the desktop I am trying to configure for my wife. The desktop "icon" simply first invokes WINE, and then the WINE command invokes Pegasus. There are error messages, sometimes, and sometimes it waits for a bit, then just quietly quits. I'll give more details as soon as I revisit it. It probably will not be today: I have too many other family duties to complete.

I did disable IERENDERER but that didn't help.

Heck, at this point, I cannot even remember which desktop I am using, but I like it a lot because it was very easy to set up, has been very reliable, and it looks enough like what she is already using that it won't confuse her......I hope. It is not KDE though.

Ken
 
Oh, yes. My FreeBSD desktop is MATE. It seems pretty good so far.

I'm kinda like the guy who fell off a 5 story building: as he passed each floor, he could be heard saying: "So far, so good." ;)

Ken
 
Is this as simple as you need the 32-bit version of WINE? Peggy is 32-bit (and 16 bit!)

 
I did install the 32-bit version of WINE and as I mentioned earlier, it went forward flawlessly.

Now earlier today, I revisited my installation of Pegasus, and AirMail (which is an amateur radio app for digital radio work), AND just for the heck of it, I tried to install MS-Office 2007.

I was wrong: none of them will work.

To attempt the Office install, as root, i used the following command: WINEARCH=$Home/Office2007, after a short pause, the standard prompt returned. Then I entered: WINEPREFIX=$Home/Office2007 $Home/mnt/Win10/"UI Software/Office 2007 Install/setup.exe"

(Now, as I remember it, I should not have done this as root, but being unsure, I did it anyway.)

After a few seconds I get: blah, blah: cannot execute binary file: Exec format error.

Therefore, it is obvious to me that **I** have done something wrong here. Now all I have to do is to figure out what that is.

I also found what I consider to be another somewhat odd thing: when I right-click on the Pegasus Icon on my desktop, and click on "Properties", under Basic, and then Command, I find this: env WINEPREFIX="/home/Ken/Pegasus" wine C:\\PMAIL\\Programs\\WINPM-32.EXE -roam\ -A, which certainly looks correct to me, but what do **I** know at this point (not much).

So, first I'll examine the link that Jose gave me above, then I'll go visit the WINE forum (or whatever it's called) and do some more reading.

I AM somewhat persistent....and stubborn.

Anyway, thanks for the help, folks.

Ken
 
The client doesn't start if it trys to use the IERenderer extension.

You can workaround it by create an `ierenderer`override and disable it in winecfg in the Libraries tab.

1681480913643.png
 
Yes this was now a fresh test a few minutes ago.

I do also start the app with wine '/home/$USER/.wine/drive_c/PMAIL/Programs/winpm-32.exe'

I do never make use of Wine shortcuts.
 
Gordon already mentioned that he got IERENDERER disabled, please see his post .

Well, I THOUGHT I had done so, but now I am not so sure.

What has me confused at this point is that NONE of the apps I thought I had installed under WINE work at all. Not one. I am trying to track down why.

BTW, one of the reasons I am not up to speed on this issue is that I first worked on it over a year ago: in the meantime, I had a series of pretty bad "health issues" which majorly interfered. I am trying to get back at this, and have a lot of things I have to catch up on. I apologize to all for my seeming lack of information.

Again, thank you all.

Ken
 
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