Qtile… the default bar is really nice to use and if you know a little python every aspect of the WM is easy to hack around in. Docs are great too.

Use mailx along with a .mailrc file? Once .mailrc is set up it should just need:

$ echo ‘is this working?’ | mailx -s Test <recipient>

Not sure exactly what .mailrc needs for gmail but there are tons of guides out there.

Probably doing that anyway

you dont say the o/s but if the pkg manager works, or you can add a statically compiled version, you could force reinstall all pkgs