[EMAIL PROTECTED] said > Hi all, > > Can someone please explain to me how to USE /etc/alternatives. I know > what it is for but how does one take advantage of the links in it? > Should it be the first item in the PATH? What? The man page is > basically useless, Ch. 10 of the Developers Manual just explains what > alternatives are, and the --help option of update-alternatives just > shows how to update the links in /etc/alternatives. >
Just for everyone's sake: multiple packages may provide the same file - a good example is the various VI clones - they all produce /usr/bin/vi. (and /usr/man/man1/vi.1...) Without the /etc/alternatives mechanism the last VI clone installed would be the vi you'd use. This is not desirable - just because we installed vim doesn't mean that we don't want Elvis to be our system-wide VI. Alternatives replaces /usr/bin/vi with a symbolic link to /etc/alternatives/vi which is it'self a symbolic link to the actual program. On one of my systems it's /usr/bin/elvisnox, on another it's /usr/bin/elvis. The short of it is that you *don't* want to execute the files in /etc/altenatives - They should point to executables that are already in your path. > Thanks, > > Brian > -- > Mechanical Engineering [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Purdue University http://www.ecn.purdue.edu/~servis > Stick -- Chuck Stickelman, Owner E-Mail: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Practical Network Design Voice: +1-419-529-3841 9 Chambers Road FAX: +1-419-529-3625 Mansfield, OH 44906-1301 USA -- Unsubscribe? mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] < /dev/null
