On Fri, Oct 12, 2001 at 05:19:11PM +0200, Eduard Bloch wrote: > Hamish Moffatt wrote on Fri Oct 12, 2001 um 10:34:06PM: > > Diversions (dpkg-divert) would be appropriate in this case. > > OTOH only one package can apply diversion on a file, this would not work > with multiple packages. This method is good for only one package
Yes that's true. > > Any package can divert another's files. However, all packages must > > agree to use alternatives to manage a particular file. > > And what is the problem? The maintainers should work together anyhow. Well, sometimes diversions are better. Say package A includes program z, among other things, and uses it as part of a larger program. Package B can provide a more capable version of z, which can be used by A. If there is no reason why you would want to use A's z when B is installed, then a diversion is fine. If you always want to use A's z, then uninstall B if that's all it provides! This example turned out to be more abstract than I intended. In real life, my package cnews has a binary called 'inews', which is used by some news reading clients. Package 'inews' provides (only) a better replacement. So inews diverts the inews command from cnews. You never need to use cnews's inews if the inews package is installed, so alternatives are not needed. Hamish -- Hamish Moffatt VK3SB <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
