(on /var/mail vs /var/spool/mail) On Wed, Jan 20, 1999 at 12:19:26AM -0800, H. Peter Anvin wrote: > > Since this is "the objection that won't die", I'm currently > > considering four "ways out" of the mess created by this change that > > went into FHS 2.0. > > 1. totally revert, drop /var/mail, and specify /var/spool/mail > > 2. partially revert, /var/spool/mail is a directory and /var/mail > > must be a symbolic link to it > > 3. allow a /var/spool/mail directory, provided that /var/mail is > > a symbolic link to it > > 4. allow either /var/spool/mail or /var/mail to be a directory, > > provided that the other is a symbolic link to it. > I believe the FHS 2.0 change was right on target. Just about every > UNIX implementation today has moved away from /var/spool/mail to > /var/mail, and it has technical advantages. May I ask what these other technical advantages are? (it might be worth adding them to the rationale section of the FHS HTML on Dan's site, too) The debian-policy thread [0] in May/June last year basically said ``it's a pain to convert, /var/spool isn't particularly inappropriate, especially for POP and IMAP users'' and ``everyone else does it, therefore we must''. Why not require /var/mail exist, but possibly be a symlink to a different place if necessary? This will probably end up happening on a number of user systems anyway and has the advantage that it's trivial to become FHS compliant, code can still get #ifdef's removed, and everyone can be happy. Cheers, aj [0] http://www.debian.org/Lists-Archives/debian-policy-9805/msg00174.html -- Anthony Towns <aj@humbug.org.au> <http://azure.humbug.org.au/~aj/> I don't speak for anyone save myself. PGP encrypted mail preferred. ``Like the ski resort of girls looking for husbands and husbands looking for girls, the situation is not as symmetrical as it might seem.''
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