Help for a beginner with Emacs

[Alain Glachant]

Hi,
I have downloaded the Emacs manual to get more informations on Emacs 
configuration. This manual is, to my opinion, not easy to understand 
(especially for a beginner who doesn't know any thing about LISP) 
concerning the customization of Emacs for a particular environment : the 
customization part lacks of examples.
My objective is to use Emacs to develop C and/or C++ programs (and to print 
the text), to edit texts and print them, and, to receive and send mails. I 
use for that a laptop running under Linux RH6.0 which is connected to an 
local net (mail server, postscript laser printers, PCs and UNIX stations) 
and to internet. My version of Emacs is : Emacs 20.3.1 
(i386-redhat-linux-gnu, Xtoolkit).
I have mainly three questions :
1/ How can I do to configure the .emacs file in order to print my buffers 
(text of C or C++ source files, text, mails) ?
I have two postscript laser printers well configured for Linux : they are 
called "lw5" and "dpt". Printing on "lw5" and "dpt" works well in KDE or 
StarOffice environments. I don't succeed to print anything under Emacs 
using the commands given in the manual. The Customization fails when I give 
"lw5" or "dpt" value to "printer-name" (same result when assigning "-Plw5" 
or "-Pdpt"). However, the "lpr -Pxxx" command works well in KDE or 
StarOffice environments. I have also tried to write "(set-variable 
printer-name lw5)" in my .emacs file. This leads to the error message : 
"Init's file has an error .. variable void : lw5". Same result for the 
other printer ..
2/ How can I save the editing options ?
I would like to save the editing options (Global font lock..", "Auto 
fill..", ...) as well as the "Debug on error" option of the C and C++ 
buffers for future sessions. Up to now I'm always obliged to restore them 
at the beginning of each session.
3/ How can I configure the mail ?
I have tried to "customize"the mail buffer (IP address, name, host server 
and outgoing server). When I check for mails, rmail says always that I have 
no mails, but kmail shows that I have got a lot ! This clearly shows that 
the "Customization" indicated in the manual is insufficient for the 
beginner (that I'm) to achieve the Emacs configuration.
Can you help me ?
Thanks for your help and collaboration.

Alain Glachant
glachant@crmc2.univ-mrs.fr


Prof. Alain Glachant
Responsable du Groupe 5 du CRMC2-CNRS :
"Structure et réactivité de surface et films minces"
Département de physique
Faculté des Sciences de Luminy - Case 901
13288 - Marseille - Cedex 9 - France
Tél: (33) 04 91 82 91 86
Fax : (33) 04 91 82 93 05