Re: Probems configuring balsa

[Peter Bloomfield <peterbloomfield bellsouth net>]

Hi Dave!

On 07/25/2009 05:18:13 AM Sat, envirotech o2 co uk wrote:
> Hi
>
> I'm trying to install Balsa on a netbook running linux4one. It's
> basically a cut down version of ubuntu.
>
> Balsa enters the set up page, I type in all the details and I get a
> "Local Mail Problem
> Couldn't create a directory: mkdir() failed on pathname
> "/home/dave/mail""  error message.
>
> As i'm new to linux it's quite possible I'm missing something really
> obvious...
>
> Can anyone tell me what I'm doing wrong?
>
> Dave

Not exactly, but perhaps we can help you diagnose it...

Mkdir() can fail for a variety of reasons; to see them, type 'man 2 mkdir'  
in a console, or browse the online man-page at  
<URL:http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/online/pages/man2/mkdir.2.html>.   
The most likely seem to be:
- a file called /home/dave/mail already exists;
- you're out of space on the partition containing /home/dave;
- the permissions on /home/dave are wrong.

To check for an existing file, type 'ls -ld /home/dave/mail'.
To check for space, type 'df /home/dave'.
To check permissions, type 'ls -ld /home/dave'.

Balsa could have been more helpful, by including the specific error in  
that message!  We'll fix that in the next release.  If you built Balsa  
from source, you could apply the attached patch and recompile ('patch -p1  
< ../mkdir-error-patch').

HTH!

Peter

diff --git a/libinit_balsa/assistant_helper.c b/libinit_balsa/assistant_helper.c
index ca7dd3a..91465e7 100644
--- a/libinit_balsa/assistant_helper.c
+++ b/libinit_balsa/assistant_helper.c
@@ -213,9 +213,10 @@ balsa_init_create_to_directory(const gchar * dir, gchar ** complaint)
             if (stat(sofar, &sb) < 0) {
                 if (mkdir(sofar, S_IRUSR | S_IWUSR | S_IXUSR) < 0) {
                     (*complaint) =
-                        g_strdup_printf(_
-                                        ("Couldn't create a directory: mkdir() failed on pathname \"%s\"."),
-                                        sofar);
+                        g_strdup_printf(_("Couldn't create a directory:"
+                                          " mkdir() failed on pathname \"%s\","
+                                          " with error \"%s\"."),
+                                        sofar, g_strerror(errno));
                     g_free(sofar);
                     return TRUE;
                 }