Re: exim's OS/Makefile-Linux

On Wed, 4 Sep 1996, Philip Blundell wrote:

> >On Tue, 13 Aug 1996, Ian Jackson wrote:
> >
> >> I think this should have the following settings:
> >> CONFIGURE_FILE=/etc/exim.conf
> >> BIN_DIRECTORY=/usr/local/sbin
> >
> >Those look like rather personal preferences to me, rather than something
> >"standard" for Linux, so I am not convinced they should be in the system
> >configuration file.
>
> I agree. There are many different Linux installations out there, and they are
> all different. Even system files like utmp have been found in at least three
> different places, so there's little hope that everybody will have picked the
> same place for their software.

Quite so.

> There seems little point in making this sort of change to the OS makefile in
> Exim. If Ian or anybody else wants to distribute Exim as, say, a Debian
> package, then presumably they can include the necessary patches to make sure
> that the paths match the setup they've chosen for their system. Otherwise
> you might just as well leave it alone and accept that it won't be what
> everybody wants.

This is the standard way Debian packages are distributed. I have created
a Debian package of exim which needs a bit more work, but all this sort
of stuff is put in Local/Makefile, not the OS-dependent makefile.

To fit in with Debian, I assigned things as follows:

binaries are in /usr/lib/exim/bin, with sendmail, mailq and rsmtp
symlinks in /usr/sbin, and a sendmail symlink in /usr/lib. Spool and
logs are under /var/spool/exim, and the configuration file is in
/etc/exim.conf.

However, I considered all these changes to be essentially Local things,
not Linux things.

If anyone is interested in helping out with the debianised version of
exim, please get in touch.

Tim.