Re: Bug#68661: Should not remove pager's alternative on upgrade

[Brian May <bam@debian.org>]

>>>>> "Robert" == Robert Luberda <robert@pingu.ii.uj.edu.pl> writes:

    Robert> To conclude: 1) Packages should not to remove alternative
    Robert> when upgrading - and this is bug in less, w3m, lv and
    Robert> probably other packages.  2) Update-alternatives should
    Robert> not remove manually set link when not removing alternative
    Robert> for package which provides this link - and it's a bug in
    Robert> update-alternatives (so please reassign this bug to less
    Robert> and dpkg, if you can).

Have a look at how java/kaffe do this. They automatically detect if
the value was manually overridden. At least, that is how I read the
postinst scripts.

What is especially good (IMHO), is the script
update-alternatives-jdk1.1 that will update the alternatives
automatically to point to the jdk ones. Its just a pity that kaffe
doesn't have similar functionality (for if you want to go back to
Kaffe after using jdk). Maybe something like this could become more
standard?

Also, I don't think it has worked properly either (not sure about that),
for instance:

[514] [snoopy:bam] ~ >/usr/sbin/update-alternatives --display java 
java - status is auto.
 link currently points to /usr/lib/jdk1.1/bin/java
/usr/lib/kaffe/bin/java - priority 300
 slave java.1.gz: /usr/share/man/man1/kaffe.1.gz
/usr/lib/jdk1.1/bin/java - priority 111
 slave java.1.gz: /usr/share/man/man1/java-jdk11.1.gz
Current `best' version is /usr/lib/kaffe/bin/java.

Why is this "status auto", and not "status manual"? I get the opinion,
looking through the postinst script of Kaffe that this means Kaffe
will automatically become the default on the next upgrade. Am I right,
or am I right?

(note that the link currently points to the non-`best' choice.)
-- 
Brian May <bam@debian.org>