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ROVER(1) text frontend for update-alternatives ROVER(1)

NAME

rover - text-based light-weight frontend for update-alternatives

SYNOPSIS

rover [-h] [-e|--expression EXPRESSION] [-v|--version]

DESCRIPTION

Rover is a text-based light-weight frontend for update-alternatives, which is inspired by the ranger file browser. Compared to existing graphical frontends such as galternatives and kalternatives, Rover still has the following advantages:

1.
User doesn't need to move hands off the keyboard.
2.
Zero GUI overhead, and not bound to a graphical environment.
3.
Supports searching by substring or Python regex.

OPTIONS

Show the help message and exit.
Filter the alternatives list initially with the given expression (substring or Python regex).
Print version information.

INTERFACE LAYOUT

Displays the list of configured alternatives.
Displays the available target candidates for the highlighted alternative.
Displays detailed metadata about the highlighted candidate, including its priority, mode, and slave links.
Displays feedback, current configuration details, and input prompts.

USAGE

To change the target for an alternative:

1.
Browse or search for the alternative name in the Left Pane.
2.
Press l or right to switch focus to the Right Pane.
3.
Highlight the desired candidate.
4.
Press SPACE or ENTER to set the selection. (Changing system alternatives typically requires root privileges; run rover with sudo or as root).
5.
Press h or left to return to the Left Pane.

KEYBINDING

[↓] move down
[↑] move up
[←] move left (focus Left Pane / Alternatives)
[→] move right (focus Right Pane / Candidates)
[*] select / set selection
/,?
[?] search
[X] quit

SEARCHING

Press / or ? to start a search. You can search by the alternative's name, its mode, or the path of a candidate. Substring matching is case-insensitive, and valid Python regular expressions are supported.

LICENSE

Copyright (C) 2018-2026 Mo Zhou <lumin@debian.org>

GPL-3.0+

2026-06-16 1.0