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Re: update-alternatives -- changing preferences



kmself@ix.netcom.com said:
> The above will add "emacs" into the list of available alternatives for
> "editor".  By what divers black majik a particular application is chosen
> I'm not sure.

Despite the claim at the top of --display's output, "auto" appears to be an
action rather than a state.  When you execute `update-alternatives --auto
<name>`, the highest priority option is assigned to the link (in the case of
a tie, the first item listed with the highest priority is chosen, IIRC).

However, this automatic selection can be overridden with `update-alternatives
--config <name>` to force a specific option - yet it continues to claim
"status is auto."

> ...what is the "correct" way to have "wmaker" be "Current 'best'
> version"?

The easy way would be

update-alternatives --config x-window-manager

and select wmaker from the list to be your default.

The not so easy way would be

update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/x-window-manager x-window-manager
    /usr/X11R6/bin/wmaker 1000 --slave /usr/bin/x-window-manager.1.gz
    x-window-manager.1.gz /usr/X11R6/man/man1/wmaker.1x.gz
update-alternatives --auto x-window-manager

I suspect that the primary difference between the two is that the second way,
despite being "more correct" is subject to being overridden if you install a
new package which lists itself at a higher priority (so you have to set your
preferred option to a ridiculously high priority to prevent that).  Using
--config is recognized as having been configured manually, so it won't be
overridden.

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