Re: update-alternatives - was [Re: Installing/launching MATE in a command line environment]
On Mon, 29 Jun 2020 Richard Owlett wrote:
On 06/28/2020 09:36 AM, echo test wrote:
Hello,
If you want the desktop environment to be started automatically
check that systemd is configured to run in graphical environment
$> systemctl set-default graphical.target
If this is already setup, and you can launch your DE with startx,
check also that mate is the default DE with update-alternatives(8)
or you can add the startx command in /etc/profile.
That manpage was intriguing, if not educational. I went searching
for "update-alternatives tutorials". They all referenced Ubuntu and
each covered only one instance.
I'm looking for something that aims to answer "What can
update-alternatives do for me today?".
Have you reviewed any notes regarding what it did for you yesterday?
If so inclined, you could review the thread which begins with this
post:
lists.debian.org/msgid-search/1e117e50-2f61-a487-9663-9b0a8a5b2a0d@cloud85.net
To: debian-user
Subject: Configuring WebHTTrack as I WANT
From: Richard Owlett
Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2018
IOW the manpage gives fine details but no sense of perspective.
I find this claim puzzling. Possibly we are reading different documents?
$ man update-alternatives # (in section 1, on my system, not 8)
update-alternatives(1) dpkg suite update-alternatives(1)
[...]
DESCRIPTION
update-alternatives creates, removes, maintains and displays
information about the symbolic links comprising the Debian
alternatives system.
It is possible for several programs fulfilling the same or similar
functions to be installed on a single system at the same time. For
example, many systems have several text editors installed at once.
This gives choice to the users of a system, allowing each to use a
different editor, if desired, but makes it difficult for a program
to make a good choice for an editor to invoke if the user has not
specified a particular preference.
Debian's alternatives system aims to solve this problem. A generic
name in the filesystem is shared by all files providing
interchangeable functionality. The alternatives system and the
system administrator together determine which actual file is
referenced by this generic name. For example, if the text editors
ed(1) and nvi(1) are both installed on the system, the alternatives
system will cause the generic name /usr/bin/editor to refer to
/usr/bin/nvi by default. The system administrator can override this
and cause it to refer to /usr/bin/ed instead, and the alternatives
system will not alter this setting until explicitly requested to do
so.
[...]
For a general overview, I would be hard pressed to improve on the
second and third paragraph above.
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