Salix Forums

Is there in slackware somewhere an equivalent to debian's 'update-alternatives'?

TIA

Slackware does not always do things the way other distros do it. Introducing the “alternatives” program would make many SlackBuild scripts a whole lot more complex.

Instead, Slackware’s package manager does not know about dependencies, so “upgradepkg package_name.txz” works fast and with the same end result as running the update-alternatives command…

djemos wrote:Slackware does not always do things the way other distros do it. Introducing the “alternatives” program would make many SlackBuild scripts a whole lot more complex.

Instead, Slackware’s package manager does not know about dependencies, so “upgradepkg package_name.txz” works fast and with the same end result as running the update-alternatives command…

Thanks.

No for sure - and its one reason why i try to get familiar with slackware (more specifically for systemd which gave to this specific laptop a lot of problems, given that it never was really easy to configure the powermanagement for it - a amd64 bases Samsung535 u3c). Please understand, i'm coming from years with Debian (and lubuntu) and obviously it try to get most of the nice things i had there over here. And forgive, if i'm asking stupid questions.

Practically, i installed Slim as display/login manager, which correctly starts first now. But i'm having problems to switch the user or to logout (because it was the default display manager of the salix fluxbox i installed). But, may be it's due to other settings (?)

Default programs for what? If you want to set with what app a certain filetype opens, you can just use the mimetype system and configure through the file manager's right click menu (open with/check always etc).

If you're talking about system components, like the login manager, then it's a different thing. There is no "alternatives" system, because it's simply much simpler than that. The boot process goes through files in /etc/rc.d. For booting in init 4 (this is the default) rc.4 is executed. If you look into that, you'll see that it tries to find login managers and launches the first one it finds. It's just so happens that it tries slim before gdm, so if you have both installed, slim will be used. If you want to switch back to gdm, remove slim, or change the order in the file (but that may be overridden in future upgrades).

Your switch user/logout problems are specific to slim, nothing to do with default apps or anything. I really wonder why you would want to use something that is unmaintained for ages though...

djemos wrote:Slackware does not always do things the way other distros do it. Introducing the “alternatives” program would make many SlackBuild scripts a whole lot more complex.

Instead, Slackware’s package manager does not know about dependencies, so “upgradepkg package_name.txz” works fast and with the same end result as running the update-alternatives command…

I did what you suggested, but i see that command simply upgrades the package. IOW, is it that the last installed software/application gets the default? E.g., installing a new terminal software would mean that software becomes default terminal? I did so with XTerm which now effectively is always called as (default) terminal, which is fine for me so far ...

Before you installed the xterm package, the xterm command was simply just a symlink to another terminal. Now it the actual xterm binary. If you want to remove the xterm command, you can reinstate the symlink (to any terminal you like).

gapan wrote:Default programs for what? If you want to set with what app a certain filetype opens, you can just use the mimetype system and configure through the file manager's right click menu (open with/check always etc).

If you're talking about system components, like the login manager, then it's a different thing. There is no "alternatives" system, because it's simply much simpler than that. The boot process goes through files in /etc/rc.d. For booting in init 4 (this is the default) rc.4 is executed. If you look into that, you'll see that it tries to find login managers and launches the first one it finds. It's just so happens that it tries slim before gdm, so if you have both installed, slim will be used. If you want to switch back to gdm, remove slim, or change the order in the file (but that may be overridden in future upgrades).

Your switch user/logout problems are specific to slim, nothing to do with default apps or anything. I really wonder why you would want to use something that is unmaintained for ages though...

Thanks so far. I see ... As for Slim, i don't know, i always liked it, because it's so simple (and i also have some nice themes for it (i always hated lightdm on the lubuntu side for so much overhead). Now, in advance my excuses for the question: In siduction (on another machine) slim worked (and still does) like a charm. Very likely i'm doing something wrong because i'm so clueless about slackware