"admin" is specific here at gna.org

about adm, I have no clue, I dont remember.

>'adm' not in /etc/group , is it cvs specific ?

Err, I could not tell. I now we have this group at cvs.gna.org and that differs from the admin group (which is the name of the siteadmin group at gna) but I dont know how standard it is. So far, no one complained about it.

>line 603 in backend/download/sv_gpgcheckfiles.pl
> system("chown", "root:".$project_gid{$project}, "$directory/maybe-corrupted");
>
> not positive on perl syntax, but, the above looks odd to me

No, that's perfectly fine.

I think it is really adm (!= admin) that is meant.

Suggest a test of some envvar or uname -a to determine OS and use 'hostname' or 'hostname -f' when required,
changing to 'group:user' and adding the /usr/local/ locations for mailman, perl, bash and others to the search path lists
should allow smooth installation on FreeBSD obsoleting my posted How-To, well, except for the required pkgs list perhaps and the automake/conf links.

can the configure script take a --prefix option ?

Ok so everyone has to be a noob at everything once, the diff is pointless because the changes are trivial.
Attaching a doc that describes the changes I made to files and locations and the pkgs needed to run Savane-2.0 on FreeBSD 6.1

I have started the base of a FreeBSD pkg,
cd /usr/local/ and extract this archive...
http://www.digilanti.org/FreeBSD-6.1-R_Savane-2.0.tar.bz2
grab the FreeBSD-Savane-HOW-TO below and read it first.

uhm that doesn't look right, sorry I'm not terribly familiar with making a diff patch

hm, gzipped it on amd64, its small , 66 lines, I'll just post/paste it here, if i can
-----------------------cut---------------------
diff -rEwBn bsd-savane/backend/darwin/useradd savane-2.0/backend/darwin/useradd
d133 1
a133 1
/usr/sbin/chown "$UserID.$GroupID" "$home"
d137 1
a137 1
/usr/sbin/chown "$UserID.$GroupID" "$home"
diff -rEwBn bsd-savane/backend/download/sv_gpgcheckfiles.pl savane-2.0/backend/download/sv_gpgcheckfiles.pl
d686 1
a686 1
system("chown", "root.root", "-R", $cachedir);
diff -rEwBn bsd-savane/backend/install/sv_update_conf.pl savane-2.0/backend/install/sv_update_conf.pl
d129 1
a129 1
$sys_default_domain = `hostname -f`; chomp($sys_default_domain);
d792 1
a792 1
`chown root.$http_user $conffile_phpcopy $conffile` if $http_user;
Only in savane-2.0: bsd-savane.diff
diff -rEwBn bsd-savane/configure savane-2.0/configure
d81 1
a81 1
MM_PATH="/usr/lib/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo /usr/local/lib/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo /var/mailman/cgi-bin/listinfo /usr/var/mailman/cgi-bin/listinfo"
d118 3
d139 1
a139 1
if [ "$SV_CONF_INTERACTIVE" = "" ]; then SV_CONF_INTERACTIVE=yes ; fi
diff -rEwBn bsd-savane/debian/savane-backend-config.postinst savane-2.0/debian/savane-backend-config.postinst
d16 1
a16 1
chomp(my $hostname = `hostname -f`);
diff -rEwBn bsd-savane/debian/savane-backend-export.postinst savane-2.0/debian/savane-backend-export.postinst
d6 1
a6 1
system("chown", "root.root", $xmldir);
diff -rEwBn bsd-savane/debian/savane-lib.postinst savane-2.0/debian/savane-lib.postinst
d6 1
a6 1
system("chown", "root.root", $locksdir);
diff -rEwBn bsd-savane/frontend/php/include/account.php savane-2.0/frontend/php/include/account.php
d67 1
a67 1
# to things like `chown user.group`)
diff -rEwBn bsd-savane/lib/Savane/Cvs.pm savane-2.0/lib/Savane/Cvs.pm
d135 2
a136 1
system("chown", "root.adm", "$dir_cvs/CVSROOT", "-R");
diff -rEwBn bsd-savane/lib/Savane/Download.pm savane-2.0/lib/Savane/Download.pm
d77 1
a77 1
system('/bin/chown', "gatekpr.$name", $dir_public);
d87 1
a87 1
system ('/bin/chown', 'upload.gatekpr', $dir_upload);
d100 2
a101 2
system ('/bin/chown', 'gatekpr.gatekpr', $dir_ftpin);
system ('/bin/chown', 'gatekpr.gatekpr', $dir_ftpout);
diff -rEwBn bsd-savane/Makefile.in savane-2.0/Makefile.in
d1 1
a1 1
BASE_CONF_COMMAND=backend/install/sv_update_conf.pl --recreate --http-user=$(WWW_SERVER_USER) --confdir=$(SV_CONF) --default-domain=`hostname -f` --www-topdir=`pwd`/frontend/php --url-topdir=$(SV_URLROOT) --incdir=\$$sys_www_topdir/../../etc/site-specific-content
diff -rEwBn bsd-savane/www/include/account.php savane-2.0/www/include/account.php
d67 1
a67 1
# to things like `chown user.group`)
-----------------------cut---------------------
yep

This just gets it to compile and install/run provided all the required pkgs are installed and available (still needs some manual tweaking).
I haven't done any further testing than getting to the initial admin login "create first account" page.