[Pkg-octave-devel] Bug#572649: Bug#572649: octave3.2: break alternatives configuration

[Thomas Weber]

On Sat, Mar 06, 2010 at 12:32:44AM +1100, Drew Parsons wrote:
> Package: octave3.2
> Version: 3.2.4-3
> Severity: normal
> 
> octave3.2 does not respect the alternatives setting (the symlinks for
> /usr/bin/octave, set with update-alternatives).
> 
> There are two aspects to the bug.
> 
> 1) Firstly, the default alternatives setting is "auto". In principle
> this is fine, except that it's automatically going to octave3.0
> instead of octave3.2. I don't know if this is a bug or not but it's
> certainly annoying.

Hmm, it's more of an oversight. octave3.0 has a higher priority than
octave3.2. I'm actually surprised it has taken so long for someone to
notice this.

> 2) More significantly, octave3.2 simply does not respect the
> alternatives configuration made manually via  "update-alternatives --config octave".
> Because of the auto config bug described above, I need to use manual
> configuration to switch the alternatives configuration from "auto (=octave3.0)" 
> to octave3.2 explicitly.  But whenever octave3.2 is upgraded (the most
> recent is today's new version 3.2.4-3), the alternatives configuration
> is reset back to "auto" (and therefore back to octave3.0).

This is very likely a bug, although I currently don't see where it comes
from. As I want to get rid of octave3.0 for Squeeze, what are your
reasons for having it installed?

	Thomas