I was not able to select xterm-pager as frontend (since edgy). The following patch solves it for me. Maybe It also helps for the frontend=mail problem.
** Attachment added: "Fix forcing of pager frontend because of gtk frontend DISPLAY test" http://librarian.launchpad.net/4904227/apt-listchanges-frontend.patch -- displays changes despite frontend=mail https://launchpad.net/bugs/64164 -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs