gnus as imap client: package url/ssl

[Martin Steffen]

hi,

I fought in vain to get flush mails from the local imap server to
my local disk-space using procmail, etc. and then having gnus
read it locally.


Too bad (I couldn't find out the reason; supported seems "Why don't you
simply use firefox, everyone does!'', well, I got lot's of mails, and I
want some decent handling of them, no clicking tiny buttons all day long,
which means for me gnus...

So I'm considering to gear up, i.e. forget about using procmail to split
mails but use gnus as imap client.

Now, here are two questions: the manual tells me: use the package 

     ssl.el

I found it, put it to my load path, but it "requires" packager "url". I
tried to google that, but it sais at


 http://www.gnu.org/software/url/


that url.el does not longer exist, resp. that it is included in emacs.

Well, it's not in my distribution, anymay (require 'url) breaks loading
ssl.el (I'm having here

    GNU Emacs 21.3.1 (i686-pc-linux-gnu, X toolkit, Xaw3d scroll bars) of 
2003-08-12 on some-machine



So, is all that no supported? What else should I use/do?



The second question is more theoretical: does gnus allow me to "grep" 
(search in some way) through emails kept at the imap server? (One reason
that I like my emails at my local disk is that I can search them quickly).

Thanks, Martin