In this not at all regular series we introduce an awesome and useful new command. Mostly so that I can find it again if I need to.

Today, I present: dpkg-divert

So, for example, if I want to have my own customised /etc/bash.bashrc which I don’t want to be overwritten when bash is upgraded by the packaging system, I might do something like:

$ sudo dpkg-divert --add --rename --divert /etc/bash.bashrc.divert /etc/bash.bashrc


This will rename /etc/bash.bashrc to /etc/bash.bashrc.divert (–rename), so I can put my own custom /etc/bash.bashrc there, and any future dpkg operation which would normally touch /etc/bash.bashrc will now instead happen to /etc/bash.bashrc.divert.

Super useful! Here’s an example of real-world usage – you can greatly improve your Linux audio experience with:

$ sudo dpkg-divert --add --rename --divert /usr/bin/pulseaudio.real /usr/bin/pulseaudio
$ sudo ln -s /bin/false /usr/bin/pulseaudio


Now for anything that actually does require pulseaudio (generally only shit software), you can do pulseaudio.real to start it and pulseaudio.real -k once you’re done.

I wish I’d known about dpkg-divert 10 years ago!