Chapter 10. Customizing your installation of Debian GNU/Linux

56

10.8 How do I override a file installed by a package, so that a differ 

ent version can be used instead?

Suppose a sysadmin or local user wishes to use a program  login local  rather than the pro 

gram  login  provided by the Debian

login

package.

Do not:

  Overwrite

/bin/login

with

login local

.

The package management system will not know about this change, and will simply overwrite

your custom

/bin/login

whenever

login

(or any package that provides

/bin/login

) is

installed or updated.

Rather, do

  Execute:

dpkg divert   divert /bin/login.debian /bin/login

in order to cause all future installations of the Debian

login

package to write the file

/bin/login

to

/bin/login.debian

instead.

  Then execute:

cp login local /bin/login

to move your own locally built program into place.

Details are given in the manual page

dpkg divert(8)

.

10.9 How can I have my locally built package included in the list of

available packages that the package management system knows

about?

Execute the command:

dpkg scanpackages BIN_DIR OVERRIDE_FILE [PATHPREFIX] > my_Packages

where: