Some users like mawk, others like gawk; some like vim, others like elvis; some like trn, others like tin; how does Debian support diversity?
There are several cases where two packages provide two different versions of a program, both of which provide the same core functionality. Users might prefer one over another out of habit, or because the user interface of one package is somehow more pleasing than the interface of another. Other users on the same system might make a different choice. Debian uses a “virtual” package system to allow system administrators to choose (or let users choose) their favorite tools when there are two or more that provide the same basic functionality, yet satisfy package dependency requirements without specifying a particular package. For example, there might exist two different versions of newsreaders on a system. The news server package might ‘recommend’ that there exist some news reader on the system, but the choice of tin or trn is left up to the individual user. This is satisfied by having both the tin and trn packages provide the virtual package news-reader. Which program is invoked is determ
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