Re: update-alternatives - was [Re: Installing/launching MATE in a command line environment]
On Mon 29 Jun 2020 at 08:52:24 -0500, Richard Owlett wrote:
> On 06/29/2020 07:26 AM, tomas@tuxteam.de wrote:
> > On Mon, Jun 29, 2020 at 07:15:56AM -0500, 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.
> >
> > FWIW, update-alternatives isn't (directly) related to the other
> > topics upstream.
> >
> > It's intended to manage groups of workalike "applications", for example
> > bash, dash, etc. as alternatives to sh, or vim, elvis as alternatives
> > for vi.
> >
> > It does so by juggling symlinks somewhere in /etc/alternatives. It's
> > smart enough to also juggle the relevant man pages, so that if you,
> > e.g. use "vim" for "vi", "man vi" will show you the vim man page.
> >
> > > I'm looking for something that aims to answer "What can
> > > update-alternatives do for me today?". IOW the manpage gives fine
> > > details but no sense of perspective.
> >
> > See "man update-alternatives", or this entry [1] in the Debian
> > wiki.
> >
> > It's a Debian-specific thing.
> >
> > What alternatives does for you? Mostly it does its job silently,
> > without complaining ;-)
> >
> > Cheers
> >
> > [1] https://wiki.debian.org/DebianAlternatives
>
> That is the type of page I was looking for. I think the links there will be
> valuable.
>
> There is a "broken link" under "See Also"
> Clicking on [ http://www.debian-administration.org/article/91 ] yields:
> > $VAR1 = \'Can\'t connect to local MySQL server through socket
> > \'/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock\' (111 "Connection refused") at
> > ../lib/Singleton/DBI.pm line 95. ';
>
> [ https://debian-administration.org/ ] says:
> > This site is now 100% read-only, and retired.
> > This site is going to go read-only
> > Posted by Steve on Sun 10 Sep 2017 at 07:02
> > Tags: meta, site news
> >
> > This site was born in late September 2004, and has now reached 13 years of age
> > and that seems to be a fitting time to stop.
>
> I believe a good link would be
> [ https://web.archive.org/web/20140406045047/http://www.debian-administration.org/article/91/
> ]
>
> Even though anyone can modify a wiki, I don't know enough about the topic to
> be comfortable doing it.
Mended with
https://debian-administration.org/article/91/Using_the_Debian_alternatives_system
--
Brian.
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