update-alternatives command not found

In this troubleshooting guide we learn how to fix update-alternatives command not found error message

Introduction

When you run more command in linux terminal / console, you get the following error message

update-alternatives: command not found

or when using sudo you get the following error message

sudo: update-alternatives: command not found

In Ubuntu update-alternatives is provided by dpkg package.

dpkg is:

This package provides the low-level infrastructure for handling the installation and removal of Debian software packages.

For Debian package development tools, install dpkg-dev.

To fix this problem, we can install more using the command below.

sudo apt-get -y install dpkg

This command might take some time to finish depending on your machine internet connection.

You can also use apt command to install dpkg.

sudo apt -y install dpkg

Or if you have aptitude installed you can use the following command.

sudo aptitude install dpkg

In this tutorial we learn how to fix update-alternatives command not found error in Ubuntu / Debian / Kali Linux or Raspbian distribution.