emacs and /etc/alternatives

[Chip Coldwell]

On Thu, 8 Mar 2007, John Dennis wrote:
> 
> My first question is why we have both an X capable and non-X capable
> version.

Well, you answered your own question: emacs-nox exists for
installations that don't include X, such as servers.

> I'm not a big fan of "alternatives", most users don't know about it,
> it's a bit arcane, and if you're savvy enough to use alternatives you
> can probably handle invoking emacs with -nw in those instances where
> DISPLAY is set. Alternatives is not buying much other than a lot of
> complications.

The "alternatives" stuff would by handled by the rpm %post script, so
users wouldn't have to know about it.  Whichever of the two packages
you installed last becomes the default (assuming they don't conflict
as Jesse requested).  That seems reasonable to me, but I'm interested
in learning what the standard practice for Fedora is.

> It also seems to me the nox package exists for a very small subset of
> installations (those without any GUI, i.e. servers).

Servers may be a small subset of Fedora installs, but they are the
majority of RHEL installs.

Chip

-- 
Charles M. "Chip" Coldwell
Senior Software Engineer
Red Hat, Inc
978-392-2426