Re: Broken Installs

["Eric G. Miller" <egm2@jps.net>]

On Sun, Jul 01, 2001 at 02:59:37PM +1000, Steven Farrier wrote:
> I been trying to install ee and xcoral
> 
> but when they are setting up they both bring back this error.
> 
> update-alternatives: unable to make /usr/man/man1/editor.1.gz.dpkg-tmp
> a symlink to /etc/alternatives/editor.1.gz: No such file or directory
> 
> I have tried apt-get -f install and that didn't help
> 
> Anyone know how I could fix this?

The alternatives system provides a series of symlinks for some "generic"
classes of programs that can be provided with several different
packages.  In this case, the alternatives links should work out
something like:

/usr/share/man/man1/editor.1.gz --> /etc/alternatives/editor.1.gz -->
/usr/share/man/man1/<real man page>

(The same should be true for /usr/bin/editor -->
/etc/alternatives/editor --> /path/to/real/editor/program )

So, to fix:
 
  I.  Try using "update-alternatives --config editor"
      
  or

  II.
      1.  Select the "real" man page you want as the target.  We'll use
	  /usr/share/man/man1/vim.1.gz

      2.  Add a symlink to it in the alternatives directory.
	  $ ln -s /usr/share/man/man1/vim.1.gz 
	                       /etc/alternatives/editor.1.gz

      3.  Add a symlink to the "alternative" in the man pages directory.
	  $ ln -s /etc/alternatives/editor.1.gz 
			      /usr/share/man/man1/editor.1.gz

Don't know why the symlinks were missing, but that should square things.

-- 
Eric G. Miller <egm2@jps.net>