UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Hello. I'm running Mac OS X 10.5. I am completely new to UNIX and also to command line. I'm trying to setup an email client and a web browser.

Google told me Pine was a good idea for email, so I got Pine. I thought it would be like other email clients, like Thunderbird, so that I can use IMAP with my Gmail account. But it doesn't look like that. When I send messages, they are from <myname>@r074177.fna.swh.mhn.de.

1) How did I get that email address? Is it mine forever? Will it change if I move to another country?

2) I want to set up IMAP/POP my Gmail account on Pine. Is that possible?

3) I also downloaded Alpine. But I only got a file called 'alpine-bin.osx-10.5' with no extension. What should I do with that file?

4) I have also downloaded ELinks <http://elinks.or.cz/download.html> and I got a folder with lots of files and I don't know how to install..

Help me! Or are there tutorials on things like these?

In essence, pine doesn't send or download email -- it expects email to already be there, delivered to it by the machine's own mail transport agent (MTA, i.e. email server), and expects to send the same way. pine dates from way back in the era when people logged into remote computers in terminals to do email. It's not an email client in the modern sense of the term.

---------- Post updated at 12:28 PM ---------- Previous update was at 12:15 PM ----------

Since you're using Mac OS X, you should be using fink to install these things.