Bug#952451: exim4-config: Installing exim4-config before util-linux prevents configuration from ever working

[James Le Cuirot]

On Mon, Feb 24, 2020 at 05:57:30PM +0100, Marc Haber wrote:
> On Mon, Feb 24, 2020 at 04:50:20PM +0000, James Le Cuirot wrote:
> > It only successfully configures after deleting /etc/exim4/update-exim4.conf.conf. Presumably the blank entries as seen below are throwing the script off. I suggest making the script more resilient and possibly adding a dependency on util-linux.
> 
> util-linux is Essential: yes, and packages SHOULD not declare
> dependencies on Essential packages unless they need a certain version
> (Policy 3.5).

That is reasonable and apologies for not being familiar with Debian packaging policies. I come from Gentoo and we have a similar concept. Nevertheless, I feel that the script should be able to recover from this situation. There may be other reasons why these fields end up blank.

Regards,
James