Alternative program versions (eg vi)
In the next version of dpkg, which should with a bit of luck be
available this weekend, will contain a program for managing files like
/usr/bin/vi which are symlinks each to one of a number of alternative
versions.
The script will be called update-alternatives. When called from the
pre/post-inst/rm scripts it will arrange for /usr/bin/vi (say) to
point to /etc/alternatives/vi, and it will update /etc/alternatives/vi
if appropriate.
The sysadmin will be able to modify the links in /etc/alternatives and
have these modifications respected.
The script will be able to modify (continuing the example)
/etc/alternatives/vi.1 to point to the correct manpage.
Each possible version needs a priority number, which will be passed as
an argument to update-alternatives. The version with the highest
priority will be used in preference, unless the sysadmin modifies the
link manually.
I haven't quite finalised the arguments and algorithm for the
update-alternatives script, but we do need to decide on the numbers
for the various versions of programs.
What priority order should relate the three versions of `vi' ?
Use of update-alternatives will be mandatory, and should replace any
special-case code in the maintainer scripts of affected packages.
Note that this script will *not* solve problems like mt-st vs
cpio-st. It is not intended to. I plan to introduce a different
mechanism to solve this kind of problem.
Ian.
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