Re: Update,Manager and Core Utils (Was: Tail +N apparent error.)

[Eric Blake]

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According to Jan-Pawel Wrozstinski on 10/13/2009 3:28 AM:
>> Report that to your distro.  Meanwhile, you can build from the upstream
>> sources by hand, rather than waiting for your distro to pre-package a
>> newer coreutils.
>>   
> 
> I'm not really looking to get involved in building or programming Ubuntu;
> I simply want to use it as an aid in pursuit of other goals.
>
> I don't know who "my distro" is (or really what that means), and I'm not
> even sure what you mean I should report.

That makes Ubuntu your distro.  In other words, you are in your rights to
file a bug report with Ubuntu, complaining that the version of coreutils
that they ship is outdated compared to the version of coreutils available
from upstream.

> There seem to be some nice tools for automatically updating some parts.
> Is there something that will automate the check for updates of the core
> utilities?  Apparently the ones that came with the installation I used are
> already outdated -- what can I use to get them caught up?  And will that
> also pick up when Jim makes the change?

Package managers almost always lag upstream, partly because they want to
make sure that no regressions have crept in by picking up a newer release.
 It's a philosophical thing - do you want the latest and greatest (compile
upstream yourself, with the burden on you), or do you want something
stable and tested, but possibly lacking newer features (use a distro, with
the burden on them).

And you are always free to download and build coreutils yourself, rather
than waiting on your Update Manager to report that the distro has finally
caught up.  The homepage http://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/ mentions:

http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/coreutils/ for stable releases (7.6)
ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/coreutils/ for beta releases (8.0)

And for the impatient, you can track the development tree itself:

git clone git://git.sv.gnu.org/coreutils

- --
Don't work too hard, make some time for fun as well!

Eric Blake             address@hidden
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