[Mailman-Users] Has anyone successfully installed Mailman onFedora Core 2?

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

>>>>> "Brad" == Brad Knowles <brad at stop.mail-abuse.org> writes:

    Brad> 	If you can show us a cross-platform way to check for
    Brad> all the appropriate and necessary Python headers that would
    Brad> be required by Mailman, and would work regardless of where
    Brad> Python was installed, where Mailman was installed, etc...,
    Brad> I'm sure we'd love to see your patch.

You don't need to do all that.  All you need to do is trap the absence
of such a basic file anywhere that Mailman would look for it.  If
$os = linux, and Python.h is missing, you can bet that "missing -devel
rpm" is the issue.  So, if Mailman comes with an autoconf script, you
just do

  AC_CHECK_HEADER(Python.h, , got_python_h=yes)])
  if test $got_python_h != yes -a $os = linux; then
    echo 'If you're on Linux, you have the "binary distro no -devel rpm" bug!'
    echo 'Switch to an Industrial-Strength OS such as NetBSD immediately!'
    echo 'Gentoo Linux will do, too.'
    dnl Last I checked, this wasn't a real AC macro, but we use a homebrew
    dnl thingie and I forget how to do this "right"
    AC_DIE_HORRIBLY_WITH_SOUND_EFFECTS()
  fi

in configure.ac.  The hard part is coming up with an informative
failure message that doesn't show how disgusted you are.<0.5 wink>

This won't work for Windows (except for people using the various GNU
toolchains), but that's probably not that big a deal.  Windows people
either don't know what a compiler is, or they have the full schlepp.
It's only Linux that surprises experienced hands by failing to
distribute header files.  I've been bitten by this myself twice in the
last month (of course, I just do "apt-get install thingie-dev", so
it's not a big deal---it's the principle of the thing).

-- 
Institute of Policy and Planning Sciences     http://turnbull.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp
University of Tsukuba                    Tennodai 1-1-1 Tsukuba 305-8573 JAPAN
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