GNU/Linux Desktop Survival Guide by Graham Williams
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Setting Default Applications

Debian has a system of alternatives for various commands (or functionalities). For example, the editor command could be nano or nvi, or one of a large number of alternative editors. You can update the default for this command with:

  $ wajig updatealts editor             (update-alternatives --config editor)

Another common alternative is x-window-manager. You can get a list of all alternatives with:

  $ wajig listalts                      (ls /etc/alternatives/)

The information is maintained in the directory /etc/alternatives/.