strace

["Russell L. Harris" <rlharris hal-pc org>]

Andrew,


Per your request, I have subtitted a bug report using reportbug.  

And I experimented running balsa under strace, and after a few minutes, 
ended up with a 10 megabyte file, which I presume you wish me to send 
you as an attach file.  

So would you plese tell me precisely what actions to perform in balse 
while running strace, in order to give you the information you need for 
diagnosis?  

Again, the list of things which have not been working properly on my 
installation (the machine name is 'cromwell') include:  

* blank lines between paragraphs run disappear when a message is sent


* HELP function is inoperative


* SPELLING function returns the message "No word lists can be found for 
the language 'en_US'."  

* message cannot be further edited once the SPELLING button is pressed; 
the cursor can be moved, but no characters can be typed 

* message body fields are invisible (solid grey) for all mail boxes 
other than Inbox


* message body is missing upon CONTINUE after a message is postponed


* print units and margins return to default values after a message is 
printed, even when the same message is printed a second time


I installed Debian via the 'netinst' procedure (that is, downloading 
over the Internet, rather than from CD) on the 2nd of July (that is, 
less than a week ago).  After installing the base system from the 
'stable' archive, I edited /etc/apt/sources.list to include the 
'testing' archive, and did a dist-upgrade.  This gave me the Gnome2 
desktop.  

My motivation for installing from the 'testing' archive rather than 
from 'stable' is two-fold:  

(1) I am running a Matrox G550 video card, and the MGA driver in the 
'stable' archive does not work with the G550.  

(2) When I experienced some of the above problems with balsa 1.x, I was 
advised by someone on this list to upgrade to balsa 2.x.  

My hardware is as follows:  

* 1700 MHz Intel Celeron processor


* ASUS P4PE motherboard


* Matrox G550 video card


* HP Laser Jet 5 with PostScript module on /dev/lp0


* 40 Gbyte IDE ATA drive


Exim is the MTA.  I am running getmail to fetch mail from POP3 
mailboxes at my ISP.  

-----------------------------------


I shall be happy to run strace again and send you the output file, as 
soon as I receive instructions from you.  

I thank you for your interest and assistance.  

RLH
Houston, Texas