Mantis + PHPmailer + Linux

[an3k]

Hi,

I'm using:
Debian Etch
Apache
PHP5
Mantis 1.1.8
PHPmailer

PHPmailer is correctly installed but no mails are sent. I dont know if PHPmailer connects to the external smtp server or not but since no emails are sent i guess it doesnt and just fakes the error messages about "authorize failed".

Do i really need sendmail in order to connect to an external smtp server? Is *nix or PHP such stupid that a MTA is required in order to access another MTA?!