Instead you might want to have a look at galternatives, a front-end to the alternatives system. But since this is quite messy in my opinion I won't recommend it. Which you could then use as input for the -install call. What you could do is writing some hack to parse the output of the -query call, maybe like this: update-alternatives -query java | /bin/grep Link | cut -f 2 -d ' ' I've been searching for a solution for this some time ago, but it seems that there is no simple workaround, yet. Unfortunately, I don't have an answer to your second question. So, you see my chain goes like /usr/bin/java -> /etc/alternatives/java ->. in my case for java: % update-alternatives -query java

To answer your first question I'd like to hint you to -query: -query nameĭisplay information about the link group like -display does, but in a machine parseable way (see section QUERY FORMAT below).Īrmed with this you will get the link source, e.g. So, here comes the questions: (1) Are there any update-alternative arguments that can output the current link that is pointing to a specific alternative, or (2) is there a way to install a new alternative without having to provide a new parameter, simply keeping the current ? That works fine, but as you see, running the command with /tmp/randomStuff as the parameter is very awkward. Reading the output I find out the old link that was pointing to the alternative, so I can finally run my command again with the right parameter, changing /tmp/randomStuff to /usr/local/bin/java: sudo update-alternatives -install /usr/local/bin/java java /usr/local/java/jre1.7.0_25/bin/java 0 That command will output: update-alternatives: renaming java link from /usr/local/bin/java to /tmp/randomStuff. What I currently do is: sudo update-alternatives -install /tmp/randomStuff java /usr/local/java/jre1.7.0_25/bin/java 0 Let's say I want to add a new version of Java Runtime Edition, but I don't know the current symlink that links to the alternative ( parameter). I've looked up the manual of update-alternatives several times but I can't find out how to show the current link pointing to a specific alternative, and that information is needed when adding a new alternative.įrom the update-alternatives manual: -install

Java update alternatives