I'm familiar with using the mail command on a number of Linux (usually Ubuntu) servers I've managed, however I can't for the life of me seem to get it working on my laptop with Zorin OS 17.3 Core installed. Running mail results in the message Cannot create mailbox: Requested item not found, and googling that has given me no useful results thus far. I've tried to reinstall it via sudo apt purge mailutils postfix, then sudo apt install mailutils, but I get the same result every time. Interestingly, if I uninstall mailutils as I just described, then attempt to run mail, I get bash: /usr/bin/mail: No such file or directory, when typically you'd be suggested to install mailutils. Not sure if that's related to the issue. If I run sudo mail I get No mail for root, so it seems to be working somewhat, but I can't at all get a mailbox working for my local user.
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I saw that there is a Package called mailutils-common and maybe You need to install it with mailutils?
mailutils-common should get installed with mailutils as far as I know; and sure enough running sudo apt install mailutils-common shows it's there.
❯ sudo apt install mailutils-common
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
mailutils-common is already the newest version (1:3.14-1).
mailutils-common set to manually installed.
Hmm ... when You type in Terminal which mail what Output do you get?
/usr/bin/mail is the output.
I've just fixed it! On a whim I went and checked the output of which mail on a server I have with a working mailbox, and got the same output. I ran mail on that server to check something else and noticed it lists the path to the mailbox, /var/mail/<user>. I checked that same path in my Zorin terminal and noticed the mailbox for my user was colored as if it were a directory while /var/mail/root was plain, like a file. I removed that directory, reinstalled mailutils, and running mail then successfully created a working mailbox.
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