Re: [Exim] Re: 4.04 RPMs

On 2002-05-07 at 09:51 -0500, Jason L Tibbitts III wrote:
> I wouldn't consider distributing binaries; if you can't install a few
> devel packages and run rpmbuild then you do have a big problem.

My experience with RedHat is limited to RedHat 7.2 on my brother's home
machine. Windows was crashing, a lot (we now suspect it was the
apparently known issue with timing assumptions vs processor faster than
1 GHz). So he tried RedHat.

I deliberately did not set him up with an MTA, as I decided that his
first major exposure to Unix would _not_ be a good time to inflict
mailadmin duties on him too. He's been using KMail and the regular POP3
and SMTP services of his ISP (my employer). This has worked well.

But he actually does use mail enough, together with his fiancée, to make
a local MTA worthwhile. I'd been vaguely wondering if I should move him
to Exim + IMAP-server running locally.

His machine install does not include a compiler or other development
tools. _I'm_ perfectly capable of handling compilation and other such
issues. But how, on that box? Start loading it down with tools first?
Explain that to someone coming from a Windows world. "Yes, it's a much
better OS, but you need all these tools which you don't understand,
which make an attacker's life easier, and which will chew up yet more
local disk space, just to install this application which I recommend".

A pre-built binary RPM from someone I can trust is _ideal_ for such a
situation.

Sure, building from source has its many advantages. I build from
source, with the only exceptions being the OS itself (prior to a "make
world") and some of the base packages I add, to get the system into a
decent state. But it's not always the correct or most desirable
approach.


I'm failing to find a tactful way to say this, so I'll resort to
bluntness: you're being a snob, sneering in an elitist manner at someone
who doesn't do things the way you do, even if it's not appropriate for
them to do so.
--
Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.