steve@crash.cts.com (Steve Morrison) writes:
quoted text
>As a matter of fact, I did [read?] your Meta-FAQ, but I don't
>have FTP privileges on this system.
>
>How about E-mail??

Sorry to take so long to respond.  This answer is also to the person
that mailed and asked the same question.

As the Meta-FAQ states, you can get the Linux FAQ by sending e-mail to 
mail-server@pit-manager.mit.edu, with the word help in the subject. 
This is the mail that I sent (without extraneous or irrelevant headers):

quoted text
> From: wirzeniu@kruuna (Lars Wirzenius)
> To: mail-server@pit-manager.mit.edu
> Subject: help

The server then sent me a document that describes how to use the server.
I won't include the whole thing here, but the relevant parts are:

quoted text
> From: Mr Background <daemon@pit-manager.MIT.EDU>
> To: Lars Wirzenius <wirzeniu@cc.helsinki.fi>
> Subject: Reply from mserv re: help (part 1 of 1)
>[...]
> index         Get the top-level index of files available from the
>               archive server.
> 
> send <filename>       Get a particular file.  For example, to get the "Mel"
>               file in the "humor" archive, you would use "send
>               humor/Mel".  To get an index for one of the archives,
>               you would use "send <archive>/index", e.g. "send
>               humor/index".

Ok, so I wanted to get an index of the whole archive.  I sent this:

quoted text
> From: wirzeniu@kruuna (Lars Wirzenius)
> To: mail-server@pit-manager.mit.edu
> 
> index
> quit

...and got another longish document, the relevant parts of which are:

quoted text
> From: Mr Background <daemon@pit-manager.MIT.EDU>
> To: Lars Wirzenius <wirzeniu@cc.helsinki.fi>
> Subject: Reply from mserv re: index (part 1 of 1)
> 
> The following archives are available at this site:
>[...]
> usenet                Regular informational postings from various newsgroups
>               on the Usenet.
>[...]

That certainly sounds interesting.  To get an index listing of that
archive, I sent this:

quoted text
> From: wirzeniu@kruuna (Lars Wirzenius)
> To: mail-server@pit-manager.mit.edu
> Subject: send usenet/index

(Note that you can have commands both in the subject and in the body of
the message.  The first help file describes things in more detail.)

The relevant parts of the listing that came back are:

quoted text
> From: Mr Background <daemon@pit-manager.MIT.EDU>
> To: Lars Wirzenius <wirzeniu@cc.helsinki.fi>
> Subject: Reply from mserv re: send usenet/index (part 1 of 1)
> 
> The following is a list of the files in the usenet archive.
> (A "d" as the first character of a line indicates a subarchive.)
> 
>[...]
> drwxrwxr-x  2 root          512 Jul  8 03:17 comp.os.linux
>[...]

Getting closer.  To get an index of the archive for comp.os.linux, I
sent this:

quoted text
> From: wirzeniu@kruuna (Lars Wirzenius)
> To: mail-server@pit-manager.mit.edu
> Subject: send usenet/comp.os.linux/index

And as promptly as ever, I received this as a reply:

quoted text
> From: Mr Background <daemon@pit-manager.MIT.EDU>
> To: Lars Wirzenius <wirzeniu@cc.helsinki.fi>
> Subject: Reply from mserv re: send usenet/comp.os.linux/index (part 1 of 1)
> 
> -----cut here-----
> The following is a list of the files in the usenet/comp.os.linux archive.
> (A "d" as the first character of a line indicates a subarchive.)
> 
> total 287
> -rw-rw-r--  2 root        45291 Jun 13 02:50 L_F_A_Q_1_2_[m_p]
> -rw-rw-r--  2 root        51328 Jun 13 02:50 L_F_A_Q_2_2_[m_p]
> -rw-rw-r--  2 root        45291 Jun 13 02:50 Linux_Frequently_Asked_Questions_1_2_[monthly_posted]
> -rw-rw-r--  2 root        51328 Jun 13 02:50 Linux_Frequently_Asked_Questions_2_2_[monthly_posted]
> -rw-rw-r--  1 root        96568 Jul  8 03:17 faq_06.1
> -----cut here-----

The above is the whole listing (except for some deleted mail headers). 
quoted text
>From the above listing, the file faq_06.1 seems to be the most newest
one, so I sent this:

quoted text
> From: wirzeniu@klaava (Lars Wirzenius)
> To: mail-server@pit-manager.mit.edu
> Subject: send usenet/comp.os.linux/faq_06.1

And to my utter surprise, I got the Linux FAQ.  Wow.

faq_06.1 is so long that it was (automatically) broken into two pieces,
so I got two mails:

quoted text
> From: Mr Background <daemon@pit-manager.MIT.EDU>
> To: wirzeniu@cc.helsinki.fi (Lars Wirzenius)
> Subject: Reply from mserv re: send usenet/comp.os.linux/faq_06.1 (part 1 of 2)
> 
>[ part 1 of the FAQ deleted ]

quoted text
> From: Mr Background <daemon@pit-manager.MIT.EDU>
> To: wirzeniu@cc.helsinki.fi (Lars Wirzenius)
> Subject: Reply from mserv re: send usenet/comp.os.linux/faq_06.1 (part 2 of 2)
>
>[ part 2 of the FAQ deleted ]

I encourage anybody who is going to use that archive to any greater
degree to go through all the steps, since most of what I have deleted is
actually quite useful information.  I just didn't want to include it all
in this posting (the mailbox was almost 600 lines without the FAQ
itself).

I assume that using the ftp-to-mail services are similar, although I
haven't tried any of those.

--
Lars.Wirzenius@helsinki.fi