Re: parallel gnu and parallel from moreutils

[Federico Kircheis <federico@kircheis.it>]

On 02/06/2025 3:24 pm, Anssi Saari wrote:
> Federico Kircheis <federico@kircheis.it> writes:
>
> > I could not find any information if something like the following has
> > already been proposed (and eventually rejected):
> >
> > moreutils should also provide /usr/bin/parallel.moreutils, even if gnu
> > parallel is not installed(!)
> >
> > gnu parallel should also provide /usr/bin/parallel.gnu
>
> Currently gnu parallel calls dpkg-divert to rename the moreutils
> provided binary and man page, if present. moreutils needs to do nothing
> and nothing provides parallel.gnu. It's a simple case since apparently
> only these two packages provide the parallel command. This setup seems
> low effort for maintainers and low pollution for users.

Do you know other packages that do something similar?
What I've observed is that most packages use something like the 
alternative mechanism, and the different executable are still available 
under multiple names.

For example cc / gcc / gcc-14.
gcc-14 is always available (when you install gcc-14), you do not need to 
install another gcc compiler.