On Wed, Aug 04, 1999 at 12:16:51PM -0700, Carl R. Witty wrote: > > On Tue, Aug 03, 1999 at 08:32:57AM -0700, Joseph Carter wrote: > > > > I second this proposal, but please change the word "dependency" > > > > by "Pre-Dependency" > > Why does /var/mail have to exist before those packages are unpacked? > Others have explained that this is probably not necessary for MTA's. > However, it still seems necessary for MUA's. On a multi-user system, > any unpacked MUA could possibly get executed while the package is > unconfigured, and before base-files is configured.
However, that MUA would presumably get run by a non-root user, who couldn't create a subdirectory with /var, which isn't world-writable. And while that may cause the MUA to do "weird" things (like read the user's mail via /var/spool/mail, or die saying "can't find your mail"), for an unconfigured package, this doesn't seem unreasonable. Cheers, aj -- Anthony Towns <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> <http://azure.humbug.org.au/~aj/> I don't speak for anyone save myself. PGP encrypted mail preferred. ``The thing is: trying to be too generic is EVIL. It's stupid, it results in slower code, and it results in more bugs.'' -- Linus Torvalds
