On Sat 27 Jun 2015 at 16:49:15 +0200, Sven Arvidsson wrote: > On Sat, 2015-06-27 at 16:58 +0300, Jayson Willson wrote: > > Hello. Could you please tell me, what is the difference between, for > > example, /usr/bin/editor (which will be a symling to an editor > > chosen with update-alternatives --config editor) and > > /usr/bin/sensible-editor? What about pager and sensible-pager? I do > > not get the practical difference. > > Thank you. > > That's a good question! :) > > From simply skimming through the scripts, it seems to mostly be an easy > way to set preferred applications through environment variables $PAGER, > $EDITOR etc.
That's the basic idea. But note that not all the preferred applications are set through environment variables, at least not as a matter of course. The one for an editor, for example. > I guess as a per-user setting instead of system-wide through > alternatives? The OP should imagine he does not have root access and likes to use nano for his editor. /usr/bin/editor is a link into the alternatives system and may point to vim. /usr/bin/sensible-editor first looks for the file ~/.selected_editor and gives him a choice of editors if it does not exist. A script for calling a file to read should use sensible-editor, not editor -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/27062015175510.fba776eb4...@desktop.copernicus.demon.co.uk