On Tue, Jan 12, 1999 at 09:45:48PM +0100, Thomas Adams wrote:
> What is /etc/alternatives good for? During installation of packages I can
> sometimes read that I can do this and that with an update-alternatives but I
> can't figure it out.
/etc/alternatives is used when there is more than one program providing a
given piece of functionality, and they can be used interchangably for this.
Each package tells the alternatives system about itself, and then the
alternatives system chooses one to provide the standard command. You can
override the selection made by overwriting the symlinks in
/etc/alternatives.
For example, there are several free implementations of vi. Each one
installs itself and tells the alternatives system that it exists.
The alternatives system then creates symlinks so that if you just run
plain "vi" one of the implementations is chosen.
--
Mark Brown mailto:broonie@tardis.ed.ac.uk (Trying to avoid grumpiness)
http://www.tardis.ed.ac.uk/~broonie/
EUFS http://www.eusa.ed.ac.uk/societies/filmsoc/