[Mailman-Users] Installation Issue

[J C Lawrence]

On Mon, 08 May 2000 19:18:00 +0000 
BCSi  <sfarber at copper.net> wrote:

> I have been working with the INSTALL instructions for Mailman, NOT
> THE BETA, and immediately ran across the piece about creating a
> directory called $PREFIX. It struck me as wrong, but I tried it
> and, of course, Linux thinks it is a shell programming variable.
> I am hesitating because I cannot afford to screw-up my server.

This is a common shorthand for much Unix software, especially for
programs that use autoconf/configure to configure themselves when
building from sources (autoconf and configure are tools that help
adapt and configure a program and its source code to the local
system so that it will build and run properly).

Mailman doesn't care what directory you use, or where it is, just
that it knows where it is and has the correct permissions.  You just
need to create and or pick one.  $PREFIX is just a shorthand "tag"
for that directory, whatever it is.  Why $PREFIX?  That's the
environment variable that configure uses internally for the base
install directory...

-- 
J C Lawrence                              Internet: claw at kanga.nu
----------(*)                            Internet: coder at kanga.nu
...Honorary Member of Clan McFud -- Teamer's Avenging Monolith...