On Mon, Feb 11, 2013 at 10:22:35PM -0600, Luis Mochan wrote:
> On Tue, Feb 12, 2013 at 09:22:20AM +1100, Brian Salter-Duke wrote:
> > ...
> > > I guess there is some confusion: Synaptic, like aptitude and apt-get,
> > > is for installing and removing packages. Update-alternatives is to
> > > choose which program to use when you have several programs installed
> > > that offer similar functionality, such as the patched and the
> > > un-patched versions of mutt. You may install both using synaptics and
> > > then choose which one to use (by default) without uninstalling the
> > > other.
> >
> > No, that is not how it worked. I had the normal mutt for months.
> > Yesterday I installed mutt-patched and it overwrote mutt. It was just a
> > link to mutt-patched. Am I missing something?
> >
> Dear Brian,
>
> I guess there is still some confusion. When you installed
> mutt-patched, mutt was overwritten. The same thing happened to me. In
> my system, /usr/bin/mutt is a link pointing to
> /etc/alternatives/mutt. Furthermore, /etc/alternatives/mutt is a link
> pointing to /usr/bin/mutt-patched, which is the actual binary for the
> patched version of mutt. Using the command update-alternatives as I
> mentioned a couple of messages ago, this link may be replaced by a
> link to /usr/bin/mutt-org, which is the binary for the unpatched
> mutt. Thus I can experiment alternating freely between mutt-patched
> and mutt (unpatched) without having to uninstall either. I use Debian,
> but I understand that the 'alternatives' system is available in Ubuntu
> also.
>
> Best regards,
> Luis
Many thanks. I understand it now. It is indeed like your describe in
Ubuntu. I had just not come across this alternates idea before.
Brian.
--
"Rectify the anomaly".
The worst slogan used by an education trade union.
Brian Salter-Duke (Brian Duke) Email: b_duke(AT)bigpond(DOT)net(DOT)au
