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Kalternatives is a KDE program that a allows you to easily configure and
change the alternatives system of your distribution, if supported.
What is an Alternatives System?
-------------------------------
An "alternatives system" is designed to allow the system administrator to
select an alternative when there are several options that provide the same
file or functionality. For example, there could be several different packages
that provide the command "vi" (the standard POSIX text editor) and your
distribution could allow you to have more than one option installed (for
example, to satisfy the needs for different users on a multiuser system).
But, how does the system knows which of the installed programs must be run
when "vi" is entered on a shell? The answer is: using the alternatives system.
This system keeps a database of provided alternatives for every option on
/var/lib/dpkg/alternatives (in case of Debian and rerived ditributions, for
example) and a collection of links on /etc/alternatives that point to the real
program. So, if your default version of "vi" is "vim", the link /usr/bin/vi
will point to /etc/alternatives/vi that points to /usr/bin/vim. But if in the
future you would like to change /usr/bin/vi to point to the nvi executable you
could:
1. Change the link on /etc/alternatives/vi by hand.
2. Use the Debian command `update-alternatives --config vi`
3. Use Kalternatives.
Which distribution are supported?
---------------------------------
The supported distribution are:
- Debian
- Fedora
- Mandriva
- openSUSE
- Ubuntu
(see INSTALL for knowing how to specify which one when compiling)
If you want to add support for another distribution, feel free to contact me.
Who do I have to whine if the program fails for me?
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Pino Toscano <pino@kde.org>
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