Kevin Shell wrote: > On Tue, Feb 16, 2021 at 11:29:54AM +0200, Andrei POPESCU wrote: > > On Ma, 16 feb 21, 16:37:20, Kevin Shell wrote: > > > Hello Debian Users. > > > > > > Why Debian does't have a switchable MTA mechanism > > > to allow install multiple MTAs at the same time? > > > > Why do you need this? > > > > For convenience when one evaluating or learning > between multiple MTAs etc.
You have an unusual use-case. > > > Fedora, Centos etc. allow users to install multiple MTAs at the same > > > multiple MTAs at the same time. > > > There's a "alternatives --config mta" command > > > to allow to choose between alternative MTA. > > > > Installing and removing/purging packages has traditionally been very > > easy in Debian, > > removing/purging one MTA & reinstalling another MTA in the above > situation is unnecessary and inconvenient. Don't purge them. Just install each of them in turn. Then the command to move to the next one is apt install MTA-NAME which shouldn't even incur any network traffic, since you have them all in /var/cache/apt/archives, and will not overwrite any config files without reason. (You should probably install etckeeper or a similar mechanism for keeping track of config files.) > >such a mechanism would have limited benefits for > > significant added complexity. > > > Is this a difficult task? > Isn't Debian already has a /etc/alternatives/ mechanism? You may be the first person to ever ask for such a thing. That doesn't make it difficult, it just makes it not currently a feature. -dsr-
