Ted Cooper wrote:
> Karl Fischer wrote:
>> Is there any good receipe out there about (easily) getting the
>> (upgrade to the) newest version of exim on Debian (sarge|etch)
>> without these troubles - ending up in compiling from source ?
>>
>> Many thanks for any hints ...
>
> Sources arn't that bad .. let's see what you have to do ..
>
> wget http://your.favourite.mirror/exim-4.69.tar.bz2
> cd /usr/local/src
> tar xvfj /path/to/dl/exim-4.69.tar.bz2
> cd exim-4.69
> cp ../exim-4.58/Local/Makefile Local/
> make
> ./build-Linux-i386/exim -bV && make install
>
> Of course you should probably look into the Makefile to see if there are
> any relevant changes and definitely the doc/NewStuff. Configuration
> files shouldn't need changing between versions, and keeping up to date
> is as simple as being subscribed to the announce lists of all relevant
> libraries and programs.
>
> No need to be afraid of the sources .. especially if you want to keep up
> with the latest version. The package maintainers are always going to be
> at least a few days to months behind actual releases.
>
CAVEAT:
At least the 'first time', one should peruse the 'as-issued'
Local/Makefile and agree with or change:
- where it will install the binaries
- what it will do about start-up scripts
- which UID and GID exim will be run as
- what you want w/r support for 'extras' such as LDAP, MySQL, PostgreSQL
... yadda, yadda...
There are differences between/among the *BSD's and at least a few of the
Linux's, (Slack?) w/r directory structure, default paths, and init or rc
startup. Not to mention AIX, Solaris, or OS X.
There have also been *loong* periods of time when sources were actually
much *less* trouble than binaries.
To Wit: Installing 'exim-postgresql' back in the days when it *ass u me
'd* that it should also *install* PostgreSQL instead of just checking
for it or leaving that up to you.
Said 'install' being the SQL version hard-coded into the port, not the
version you were already using, resulted in overwriting your production
rev level that was in use for a whole host of things othere than just
Exim... not fun!
By contrast, the 'generic' source tarball only builds the tools Exim
needs to *use* a DB (or whatever...) and leaves the rest up to you.
Bill
