On Mon, Jan 03, 2000 at 02:46:25PM +1100, Hossein S. Zadeh wrote:
: > In the /etc/alternatives directory is a bunch of symlinks that point to the
: > actual program you would like to choose out of /usr/bin. That's cool, and
: > extremely handy.
:
: I am sorry, but I fail to see your point. I understand that there is a
: directory "/etc/alternatives" very early in your PATH, and you can create
: symlinks there. Well, what is stopping you to do the very same thing on
: ANY OTHER unix machine???? AND what has it got with package management?
The fact that it is automatic is the advantage. Suppose you have emacs 19
and 20 installed. dpkg *AUTOMATICALLY* creates a diversion for emacs19,
so it doesn't get obliterated by the emacs20 package. RPM would just refuse
to install emacs 20, saying it conflicts with emacs 19, or would force you
to upgrade, not permitting both versions to be present at the same time.
That's what it has to do with package management. And no, /etc/alternatives
does not appear anywhere in the $PATH var.
/usr/bin/emacs -> /etc/alternatives/emacs
/etc/alternatives/emacs -> /usr/bin/emacs20
(as an example)
/etc should always be a locally mounted fs, so this works.
And no, nobody stops you from doing this on any other unix machine. You
just get to manage the whole thing manually.
When you manage 1 or 2 machines, it's not a big deal, but when you manage
50 or 100, anything that automates any task saves you that few minutes,
times 50 or 100 machines.
HTH. HAND.
--
Jason Costomiris <><
Technologist, cryptogeek, human.
jcostom {at} jasons {dot} org | http://www.jasons.org/
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