Autor: Derek Broughton Data: A: exim-users Assumpte: Re: [Exim] criticism/comment about missing info in install docs
Nigel wrote: >
> Mail handling is a complex process. Certain companies attempt to give
> you a point-and-drool interface to mail configuration and so we have a
> whole bunch of compacently blindly ignorant mail "managers" who wouldn't
> know an RFC if it hit them in the face. This is not a good state of
> affairs. Frankly installing and managing a mail system requires some
> knowledge, and stating that you shouldn't need to have this knowledge
> pretty much states that you should not be joining the mail managing
> community.
This is the sort of annoying elitism that has made people wary of *nixes
for decades. There's nothing inherently wrong with 'ignorant mail
managers' who are using good tools to create systems that adhere to the
RFCs. They, should, however be willing to RTFM when they can't figure
out what went wrong. Nobody should have to read a 300 page manual to
configure exim. And, except for one small problem with the aliases
file, I don't think anybody does have to. otoh, having a 300 page
manual to refer to when you can't find something is _really_ nice.
In this case, exim does work pretty much out of the box (I installed
from Debian - the only problem was that I didn't have an /etc/aliases
either). I didn't have a handy guru to help, so I guess the manual must
have done the job.
--
Derek Broughton
