[email protected] writes: > man update-alternatives has no mention of how the priorities of > alternatives originate. The most reasonable explanation I can > imagine is that any new alternative is assigned a lower priority > than extant alternatives. Correct? >
The packager chooses the priority. The alternative provided is installed (by calling update-alternatives --install) from the package postinst. > My example from last July. > peter@dalton:~$ update-alternatives --display x-window-manager > x-window-manager - auto mode > link currently points to /usr/bin/openbox > /usr/bin/openbox - priority 90 > slave x-window-manager.1.gz: /usr/share/man/man1/openbox.1.gz > /usr/bin/xmonad - priority 20 > Current 'best' version is '/usr/bin/openbox'. > > Suppose that I prefer xmonad to openbox. > Run update-alternatives --config x-window-manager to set your preference. You don't need to mess with priority. It only decides what will be selected automatically when packages are installed/removed. If you override by running update-alternatives --config, then the priority has no effect. > One way to indulge my prefence would be to somehow impose > it in the operation of startx. Apparently this is the effect > of the first instruction in http://wiki.debian.org/Xmonad, > "... add > STARTUP=x-window-manager > to your ~/.xsessionrc." > > A second strategy would be to find a way to raise the priority > of xmonad. If my original speculation above is correct, this > might be achieved by de-installing both alternatives and > reinstalling in the desired order. Alternatively, by using > update-alternatives directly. > > update-alternatives --remove x-window-manager /usr/bin/xmonad > update-alternatives --install x-window-manager x-window-manager > /usr/bin/xmonad 100 > > This would give xmonad top priority system wide and should work > for a display manager as well as for startx. Comments welcome. > I recommend you don't run update-alternatives --remove or --install for this purpose. For most sysadmins, --config should be sufficient. -- regards, kushal -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [email protected] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [email protected] Archive: http://lists.debian.org/[email protected]
