Re: overwriting files
On Fri, Oct 12, 2001 at 05:19:11PM +0200, Eduard Bloch wrote:
> Hamish Moffatt wrote on Fri Oct 12, 2001 um 10:34:06PM:
> > Diversions (dpkg-divert) would be appropriate in this case.
>
> OTOH only one package can apply diversion on a file, this would not work
> with multiple packages. This method is good for only one package
Yes that's true.
> > Any package can divert another's files. However, all packages must
> > agree to use alternatives to manage a particular file.
>
> And what is the problem? The maintainers should work together anyhow.
Well, sometimes diversions are better. Say package A includes program
z, among other things, and uses it as part of a larger program. Package
B can provide a more capable version of z, which can be used by A.
If there is no reason why you would want to use A's z when B is installed,
then a diversion is fine. If you always want to use A's z, then uninstall
B if that's all it provides!
This example turned out to be more abstract than I intended. In real life,
my package cnews has a binary called 'inews', which is used by some
news reading clients. Package 'inews' provides (only) a better replacement.
So inews diverts the inews command from cnews. You never need to use
cnews's inews if the inews package is installed, so alternatives are
not needed.
Hamish
--
Hamish Moffatt VK3SB <hamish@debian.org> <hamish@cloud.net.au>
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