Allowing a user to choose their MTA at install (Was: simple-cdd help)
On Wed, Oct 19, 2005 at 03:34:37PM -0600, Vagrant Cascadian wrote:
> (replying to a message posted to distro@lists.freegeek.org)
>
> On Wed, Oct 19, 2005 at 11:58:19AM -0500, alfonso celestino wrote:
>
> > I would like to use simple-cdd to build a "E-MAIL
> > GATEWAY" cd installer, then i need to install
> >
> > postfix
> > spamassassin
> > amavis
> > clamav
> > ...
> > ...
> > ...
>
> one thing to note, it will first install exim4, and later in the process
> install postfix(which removes exim). it's not easy to avoid installing
> exim, unfortunately.
This is an issue that I have been pondering for a while, and now seems
like as good a time as any to air my ideas and see if they got shot
down.
I believe that the only package in base that depends on
mail-transport-agent is at. Given that cron lists it as a recommends, it
would seem reasonable to change at's dependancy to a recommends. This
would remove the need for exim4, and indeed any mail-transport-agent to
be in base.
Instead I propose that at the second stage install, base-config could
have a menu item to allow you to select which mailer you want. The
choice could include a none option. It could be generated based on the
available apt sources at the time. And, it could be preseeded.
exim4 could still be the default, and this could still be included on
the cd by default. But this seems like a very nice way for the user (or
provider of the cdd) to choose what, if any mailer they want.
I've CCed Ryan Murray, the at maintainer, AJ, the debootstrap
maintainer, and the debian installer team. Applologies if long
CC lists offend you, but I do think this is an issue worthy of
attention.
--
Horms
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