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Re: paths.h
- To: alex dot buell at tahallah dot demon dot co dot uk
- Subject: Re: paths.h
- From: Mark Kettenis <kettenis at wins dot uva dot nl>
- Date: Mon, 27 Dec 1999 19:40:49 +0100 (CET)
- CC: glibc-linux at ricardo dot ecn dot wfu dot edu
- Reply-To: glibc-linux at ricardo dot ecn dot wfu dot edu
From: Alex Buell
Date: Sun, 26 Dec 1999 12:18:28 +0000 (GMT)
Is paths.h part of glibc?
Yes it is (too lazy to check yourself?). It is included for
compatibility with BSD.
If so, why is
#define _PATH_MAILDIR "/var/mail"
Since that's the location specified by the current Linux FHS.
and not:
#define _PATH_MAILDIR "/var/spool/mail"
That's the location used by the majority of Linux distributions out
there.
This screws up machines that uses /var/spool/mail. Surely this should have
been left to the user/distributors to set themselves?
It sure screws things up. And it should definitely be left to the
users/distributors to make sure things are screwed down again :-).
Any sensible mail-handling program should let you configure the
location where the mailboxes can be found, both when you compile the
stuff and at run-time. Glibc only provides a sensible default, which
is `/var/mail', since that's what all future Linux-systems are
supposed to use.
Until you recompile all your mail handling programs, you'll probably
want to do:
# ln -s /var/spool/mail /var/mail
Mark