mailman checks for the installation directories during configury. IMO this wrongly assumes, that

• the build machine is the target machine
• the directories already exist during configuration
• you don't use a temporary installation directory

2.1b2 works ok. Found this while making experimental Debian packages.

Matthias

./configure --prefix=/usr/lib/mailman
--with-var-prefix=/var/lib/mailman
--with-username=list
--with-groupname=list
--with-mail-gid=daemon --with-cgi-gid=www-data creating cache ./config.cache checking for --with-python... no checking for python... /usr/bin/python checking Python interpreter... /usr/bin/python checking Python version... 2.1.3 checking for a BSD compatible install... /usr/bin/install -c checking whether make sets ${MAKE}... yes checking for true... /bin/true checking for --without-gcc... no checking for gcc... gcc checking whether the C compiler (gcc ) works... yes checking whether the C compiler (gcc ) is a cross-compiler... no checking whether we are using GNU C... yes checking whether gcc accepts -g... yes checking whether #! works in shell scripts... yes checking for --with-var-prefix... /var/lib/mailman checking for --with-username... list checking for list UID... 38 checking for --with-groupname... list checking for list GID... 38 checking permissions on /var/lib/mailman... configure: error: ***** Installation directory /var/lib/mailman is not configured properly! ***** Directory doesn't exist: /var/lib/mailman make: *** [configure-stamp] Error 1