Solved update-alternatives for FreeBSD

[royskatt]

Hello,

when calling the gpg command I want gpg2 to be executed instead of gpg1. Both programs are installed. In Linux I used update-alternatives for that. What would be the equivalent in FreeBSD?

Thank you.

 

[rigoletto@]

You just need to place an alias in your .cshrc/.shrc/.bashrc etc.

alias gpg gpp2

 

[Yampress]

update-alternatives is only Linux command..
FreeBSD isn't another Linux distribution. FreeBSD is Unix like system.

 

[royskatt]

Yampress : and that's precisely the reason why I asked for an equivalent.
lebarondemerde : Thank's for the hint. The man pages told me to do the following:

alias gpg="gpg2"

That did the trick

 

[rigoletto@]

Alias also work on Linux. IIRC update-alternatives is Debian tool.

 

[rigoletto@]

Yampress : and that's precisely the reason why I asked for an equivalent.
lebarondemerde : Thank's for the hint. The man pages told me to do the following:

alias gpg="gpg2"

That did the trick

You should be using sh or bash then.

 

[Yampress]

update-alternatives create link to pragram which you choose

[yampress@debian /etc/alternatives]$ ls -al
razem 52
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 wrz 9 08:04 .
drwxr-xr-x 138 root root 12288 wrz 17 10:28 ..
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 20 sie 10 16:23 animate -> /usr/bin/animate-im6
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 36 sie 10 16:23 animate.1.gz -> /usr/share/man/man1/animate-im6.1.gz
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 13 sie 10 16:36 awk -> /usr/bin/gawk
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 29 sie 10 16:36 awk.1.gz -> /usr/share/man/man1/gawk.1.gz
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 38 sie 10 15:00 builtins.7.gz -> /usr/share/man/man7/bash-builtins.7.gz
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 16 sie 10 16:22 c89 -> /usr/bin/c89-gcc
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 32 sie 10 16:22 c89.1.gz -> /usr/share/man/man1/c89-gcc.1.gz
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 16 sie 10 16:22 c99 -> /usr/bin/c99-gcc
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 32 sie 10 16:22 c99.1.gz -> /usr/share/man/man1/c99-gcc.1.gz
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 12 sie 10 16:22 cc -> /usr/bin/gcc
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 13 sie 10 16:23 cli -> /usr/bin/mono
....
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 17 sie 10 15:01 w -> /usr/bin/w.procps
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 33 sie 10 15:01 w.1.gz -> /usr/share/man/man1/w.procps.1.gz
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 18 sie 10 15:01 write -> /usr/bin/bsd-write
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 34 sie 10 15:01 write.1.gz -> /usr/share/man/man1/bsd-write.1.gz
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 39 sie 10 17:02 x-cursor-theme -> /usr/share/icons/DMZ-White/cursor.theme
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 17 sie 10 16:23 x-session-manager -> /usr/bin/startkde
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 16 sie 10 16:23 x-terminal-emulator -> /usr/bin/konsole
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 17 sie 10 16:23 x-window-manager -> /usr/bin/kwin_x11
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 23 sie 10 16:33 x-www-browser -> /usr/bin/vivaldi-stable
[yampress@debian /etc/alternatives]$

You can do this by hand.... without update-alternatives. But tool update-alternatives show to you another alternatives

ln -s   /usr/bin/vivaldi-stable    /etc/alternatives/x-www-browser

alias in FreeBSD is easier and It's similar way to do the same action.

 

[tobik@]

alias in FreeBSD is easier and It's similar way to do the same action.

Not really. Shell aliases are local to your shell only. Scripts and other shells won't see it. Using a symlink or wrapper script makes gpg available globally.

Use a symlink:
ln -s /usr/local/bin/gpg2 /usr/local/bin/gpg (or link to somewhere else in your PATH if you don't want to touch /usr/local/bin)

But security/gnupg automatically creates a /usr/local/bin/gpg symlink for you, unless you also have security/gnupg1 installed. You don't have to do this yourself if you only use one of them.

 

[ATAG]

Just for the record (for future myself), archivers/dpkg brings update-alternatives(1) to your system, and it works as excepted. Switching between compilers is a p@in in the ... by default.
Using this tool it is (almost) easy to setup:

sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/local/bin/gcc gcc /usr/local/bin/gcc15 100 \
--slave /usr/local/bin/g++ g++ /usr/local/bin/g++15 \
--slave /usr/local/bin/gfortran gfortran /usr/local/bin/gfortran15 \
--slave /usr/local/bin/gcc-ar gcc-ar /usr/local/bin/gcc-ar15 \
--slave /usr/local/bin/gcc-nm gcc-nm /usr/local/bin/gcc-nm15 \
--slave /usr/local/bin/gcc-ranlib gcc-ranlib /usr/local/bin/gcc-ranlib15 \
--slave /usr/local/bin/gcov gcov /usr/local/bin/gcov15

repeat it with all the different versions as well.

Then to "switch" compiler:

sudo update-alternatives --config gcc

And select the desired version... as simple as that.

I love this thing, even though it's not a native FreeBSD tool