The package doesn't set up a lua-interpreter alternative and thus doesn't seamlessly provide lua cli

[Bojan Markovic]

Ubuntu 17.04 Zesty amb64
lua5.3: 5.3.3-1

Installing other versions of the lua5.x interpreters (i.e. providers for the lua virtual packages) installs alternatives for the lua-interpreter.

Installing lua5.3 package does not provide alternative for lua-interpreter but one must manually symlink /usr/bin/lu(a|ac) to /usr/bin/lu(a|ac)5.3.

Note that there is an open question on Askubuntu for earlier version of Ubuntu:

https://askubuntu.com/questions/850317/installing-lua5-2-vs-lua5-3-on-ubuntu-16-10

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Matt Day (fjarlq)]

This is still an issue on 18.04 Bionic.

Workaround:

sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/lua lua /usr/bin/lua5.3 10
sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/luac luac /usr/bin/luac5.3 10

[Matt Day (fjarlq)]

Improved workaround so that it's compatible with the alternatives configured by the older lua packages, like lua5.2:

sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/lua lua-interpreter /usr/bin/lua5.3 130 --slave /usr/share/man/man1/lua.1.gz lua-manual /usr/share/man/man1/lua5.3.1.gz

sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/luac lua-compiler /usr/bin/luac5.3 130 --slave /usr/share/man/man1/luac.1.gz lua-compiler-manual /usr/share/man/man1/luac5.3.1.gz

[Christian Ehrhardt  (paelzer)]

I just acme by by accident, but wanted to update that this is fixed in 5.3.3-1 which means >=Bionic

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.