On Wed, 2008-05-28 at 18:38 +0100, Phil (Medway Hosting) wrote: > If you don't mind me asking, (and no I DON'T have Debian) - What exactly is > the issue with Debian & Exim and why a separate list ? Because they have > modded it so much to make it work on that OS ? Is it really all that > different ? Just interested.
There are a few reasons, but the primary one is that yes, the Debian package maintainers (hi Marc!) have created a distribution-specific configuration system which splits the config file into a lot of separate ones, and have provided a toll or tools with which to manage commonly-utilised setups. They also provide distribution-specific support. Most of the time (not a scientific analysis, obviously) questions being asked here by new Debian users are being asked because they haven't read the nice helpful README file that comes with Exim on Debian, and points them to their own mailing list which understands the system being used. Marc (Haber) actually states on the main package page in the Debian wiki: http://wiki.debian.org/PkgExim4 "There are lots of excellent documentation for exim. The first file to read under debian is README.Debian (linked below) Then one ought to read the specification file; /usr/share/doc/exim4-base/spec.txt Please note that the debian configuration is different from the default exim4 configuration found on other systems. This is why it is imperative that one read the debian documentation when setting up exim." That page links to the Debian ML page - http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/pkg-exim4-users - and states: "Please note that you're going to be flamed to hell and back if you ask questions that are clearly answered in the docs. This especially goes for the information given in README.Debian as mentioned above." and the ML page says: "This public, unmoderated list is dedicated for User-level discussion and support for the Debian exim 4 packages. You can ask questions about both exim upstream and the Debian exim 4 packaging here. Please do not ask Debian-related questions on the upstream Mailing list exim-users. Please check the README file, the Debian exim4 home page, the list archives and the upstream wiki before posting questions. Please update the wikis with useful and appropriate information. The README file is on your system in /usr/share/doc/exim4-base/README.Debian.gz. The README file is also linked from the Debian exim4 home page " I think it's made fairly clear in the Debian information that Debian users should start with the Debian resources. The major issue at hand here is that so many people just don't bother to read them, and turn up here asking why 00manualroute_widget or something like that isn't working for them. Things are further complicated by the proliferation of Ubuntu, which provides no specific support for its' own package and re-distributes the Debian one. There have been several new Ubuntu users here asking for support recently, when their questions revolve around the Debian packaging and configuration system. The docs for which they haven't read. I think that sums it up :) Graeme -- ## List details at http://lists.exim.org/mailman/listinfo/exim-users ## Exim details at http://www.exim.org/ ## Please use the Wiki with this list - http://wiki.exim.org/
