Re: Resolutions to comments on LSB-FHS-TS_SPEC_V1.0

[Joseph Carter <knghtbrd@debian.org>]

On Mon, Jan 25, 1999 at 01:54:24PM -0800, Daniel Quinlan wrote:
> I would like to be more certain that nobody is going to be upset by
> any changes to the mail spool specification in FHS, so could you tell
> me your distribution's preference on this?
> 
>   a) /var/mail (FHS 2.0)
>   b) /var/spool/mail (current Linux practice and FSSTND 1.x)
>   c) something else
> 
> There have been many permutations of each of the above options, so
> please let me know which one you prefer (and why).
> 
> I'd like to finish this email thread as soon as possible -- I think
> this issue is more tied with distribution preference than many other
> issues because of the number of affected components.

I offered in email to you how I would expect Debian to switch to
/var/mail, which I am finally convinced based on the answers to the
thread I got.  I'll repeat it here for the general viewing of all..

For new installations, /var/mail is easy.  For upgrades we just check to
see if there is a /var/mail in base-files.  If it exists, good.  If not,
we symlink it to /var/spool/mail.  It then becomes the sysadmin's
responsibility to swap directory and symlink if they want (I would) and
whether or not to keep around /var/spool/mail at all..

-- 
"I'm working in the dark here."  "Yeah well rumor has it you do your best
work in the dark."
                               -- Earth: Final Conflict