Mailing List Archive

On 10/7/22 8:25 AM, n952162 wrote:
> Can anybody tell me how I can look at the official change history of
> linux commands?

Some man pages have history of commands in them.

Admittedly, it seems as if man pages on Solaris and *BSD (I have access
to FreeBSD) tend to be better than Linux man page at this aspect.



--
Grant. . . .
unix || die

Am 07.10.22 um 16:56 schrieb Grant Taylor:
> On 10/7/22 8:25 AM, n952162 wrote:
>> Can anybody tell me how I can look at the official change history of
>> linux commands?
>
> Some man pages have history of commands in them.
>
> Admittedly, it seems as if man pages on Solaris and *BSD (I have
> access to FreeBSD) tend to be better than Linux man page at this aspect.
>
>
>

Well, the man page, yes, would be a good indicator, but the commands
themselves?

Where does gentoo get the source to build  test(1) or expr(1) or
date(1)?    That's in some package, but where is the upstream source? 
Is it something in github?  Or a linux portal?  Or Torvalds private
server?  Or the gnu server?

On 2022-10-07 17:25+0200 n952162 <n952162@web.de> wrote:

> Am 07.10.22 um 16:56 schrieb Grant Taylor:
> > On 10/7/22 8:25 AM, n952162 wrote:
> >> Can anybody tell me how I can look at the official change history
> >> of linux commands?
> >
> > Some man pages have history of commands in them.
> >
> > Admittedly, it seems as if man pages on Solaris and *BSD (I have
> > access to FreeBSD) tend to be better than Linux man page at this
> > aspect.
> >
> >
> >
>
> Well, the man page, yes, would be a good indicator, but the commands
> themselves?
>
> Where does gentoo get the source to build  test(1) or expr(1) or
> date(1)?    That's in some package, but where is the upstream source? 
> Is it something in github?  Or a linux portal?  Or Torvalds private
> server?  Or the gnu server?
>
>

/usr/bin/test[1] was installed by sys-apps/coreutils[2], it's homepage
is <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/>[3], that links to the
source code repository.

Other ways to find out:
- `equery meta sys-apps/coreutils`
- `less $(portageq get_repo_path / gentoo)/sys-apps/coreutils/coreutils-8.32-r1.ebuild`

Kind regards, tastytea

[1] `whereis test`
[2] `qfile /usr/bin/test` or `equery belongs /usr/bin/test`
[3] `eix sys-apps/coreutils` or emerge -s sys-apps/coreutils`

Am 07.10.22 um 17:47 schrieb tastytea:
> On 2022-10-07 17:25+0200 n952162 <n952162@web.de> wrote:
>
>> Am 07.10.22 um 16:56 schrieb Grant Taylor:
>>> On 10/7/22 8:25 AM, n952162 wrote:
>>>> Can anybody tell me how I can look at the official change history
>>>> of linux commands?
>>> Some man pages have history of commands in them.
>>>
>>> Admittedly, it seems as if man pages on Solaris and *BSD (I have
>>> access to FreeBSD) tend to be better than Linux man page at this
>>> aspect.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>> Well, the man page, yes, would be a good indicator, but the commands
>> themselves?
>>
>> Where does gentoo get the source to build  test(1) or expr(1) or
>> date(1)?    That's in some package, but where is the upstream source?
>> Is it something in github?  Or a linux portal?  Or Torvalds private
>> server?  Or the gnu server?
>>
>>
> /usr/bin/test[1] was installed by sys-apps/coreutils[2], it's homepage
> is <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/>[3], that links to the
> source code repository.
>
> Other ways to find out:
> - `equery meta sys-apps/coreutils`
> - `less $(portageq get_repo_path / gentoo)/sys-apps/coreutils/coreutils-8.32-r1.ebuild`
>
> Kind regards, tastytea
>
> [1] `whereis test`
> [2] `qfile /usr/bin/test` or `equery belongs /usr/bin/test`
> [3] `eix sys-apps/coreutils` or emerge -s sys-apps/coreutils`
>

Oh, that's good.  Thank you.

On Fri, 2022-10-07 at 17:47 +0200, tastytea wrote:
>
>
> /usr/bin/test was installed by sys-apps/coreutils

If you're using bash, the "test" command is actually built-in to the
shell to avoid forking a million processes in every shell script.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: tastytea <gentoo@tastytea.de>
> Sent: Friday, October 7, 2022 8:48 AM
> To: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org
> Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] Change History of linux commands
>
> On 2022-10-07 17:25+0200 n952162 <n952162@web.de> wrote:
>
> > Am 07.10.22 um 16:56 schrieb Grant Taylor:
> > > On 10/7/22 8:25 AM, n952162 wrote:
> > >> Can anybody tell me how I can look at the official change history
> > >> of linux commands?
> > >
> > > Some man pages have history of commands in them.
> > >
> > > Admittedly, it seems as if man pages on Solaris and *BSD (I have
> > > access to FreeBSD) tend to be better than Linux man page at this
> > > aspect.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
> > Well, the man page, yes, would be a good indicator, but the commands
> > themselves?
> >
> > Where does gentoo get the source to build test(1) or expr(1) or
> > date(1)? That's in some package, but where is the upstream source?
> > Is it something in github? Or a linux portal? Or Torvalds private
> > server? Or the gnu server?
> >
> >
>
> /usr/bin/test[1] was installed by sys-apps/coreutils[2], it's homepage is <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/>[3], that links to the source code repository.
>
> Other ways to find out:
> - `equery meta sys-apps/coreutils`
> - `less $(portageq get_repo_path / gentoo)/sys-apps/coreutils/coreutils-8.32-r1.ebuild`
>
> Kind regards, tastytea
>
> [1] `whereis test`
> [2] `qfile /usr/bin/test` or `equery belongs /usr/bin/test` [3] `eix sys-apps/coreutils` or emerge -s sys-apps/coreutils`
>

Note also that several of these may have copies built into your shell for speed and so that you can update the system utilities without an outage.

"bash -c help" or "busybox --help" or similar to see the list.

LMP

On 10/7/22 8:25 AM, n952162 wrote:
> Can anybody tell me how I can look at the official change history
> of linux commands ?

There's the Wayback Machine, which tries to archive all I/net pages ever.
I've never used it, but it should have copies of man pages going back,
which would allow you to reconstruct the history of the commands.

--
========================,,============================================
SUPPORT ___________//___, Philip Webb
ELECTRIC /] [] [] [] [] []| Cities Centre, University of Toronto
TRANSIT `-O----------O---' purslowatchassdotutorontodotca

On Fri, 2022-10-07 at 17:47 +0200, tastytea wrote:
> equery meta

Ashamed to admit I learned of equery meta today. I'd previously been
relying on eix to find, say, the website associated with a package.

On 10/7/22 10:31 AM, Matt Connell wrote:
> Ashamed to admit I learned of equery meta today. I'd previously been
> relying on eix to find, say, the website associated with a package.

NEVER be ashamed to admit that you learned something.

Learning is a good thing.

It doesn't matter when you learn it as long as you do learn.

I think that being ashamed about not knowing something tends to promote
what I consider to be a negative stigmata that people should know
everything and that they should hide what they don't know.

I've been administering Linux professionally for more than two decades
and I still learn new things weekly if not daily.

Help pull others up, don't hold them down by climbing on top of them.



--
Grant. . . .
unix || die

On 10/7/22 10:23 AM, Philip Webb wrote:
> There's the Wayback Machine, which tries to archive all I/net pages ever.

Sadly, there are a lot of pages that the Wayback Machine a.k.a. The
Internet Archive doesn't have archived. TIA / WM is a best effort
system and is a lot better than not having anything at all.

> I've never used it, but it should have copies of man pages going back,
> which would allow you to reconstruct the history of the commands.

I don't think that searching the internet for old copies of man pages is
going to be as productive as one might hope. First there's the SysV vs
BSD lineage to account for. Second there's all the other things that
don't fall in the SysV / BSD camps, mostly older.

I'd suggest inquiring on the TUHS or COFF mailing lists for pointers to
history of various commands. You may very well be pointed to archived
man pages. But you'll also have comments from people who maintained
commands and possibly added the option that you're most interested in.



--
Grant. . . .
unix || die

On Fri, 2022-10-07 at 11:04 -0600, Grant Taylor wrote:
> I think that being ashamed about not knowing something tends to promote
> what I consider to be a negative stigmata that people should know
> everything and that they should hide what they don't know.

Was more just laughing at myself for having used equery so frequently
for ~10 years and not knowing about the option.

And if I was hiding it, I wouldn't have publicly replied that I learned
it :)

Matt Connell wrote:
> On Fri, 2022-10-07 at 17:47 +0200, tastytea wrote:
>> equery meta
> Ashamed to admit I learned of equery meta today. I'd previously been
> relying on eix to find, say, the website associated with a package.
>
>


I just checked that out and it is nifty.  Now to remember the option
next time I need it.  :/  You were not alone in missing that option.  I
had no idea it was there either.

Dale

:-)  :-) 

On 10/7/22 11:10 AM, Matt Connell wrote:
> Was more just laughing at myself for having used equery so frequently
> for ~10 years and not knowing about the option.

Fair enough.

> And if I was hiding it, I wouldn't have publicly replied that I
> learned it :)

TIL

You accidentally struck a button for me. As the ... more experienced SA
on teams for a while, I tend to not tolerate people hording / not
sharing information and / or making fun of others for not knowing
something. So I counter this by actively promoting people learning
things as a good thing.



--
Grant. . . .
unix || die

On Fri, 7 Oct 2022 17:47:51 +0200
tastytea <gentoo@tastytea.de> wrote:

> On 2022-10-07 17:25+0200 n952162 <n952162@web.de> wrote:
>
> > Am 07.10.22 um 16:56 schrieb Grant Taylor:
> > > On 10/7/22 8:25 AM, n952162 wrote:
> > >> Can anybody tell me how I can look at the official change history
> > >> of linux commands?
> > >
> > > Some man pages have history of commands in them.
> > >
> > > Admittedly, it seems as if man pages on Solaris and *BSD (I have
> > > access to FreeBSD) tend to be better than Linux man page at this
> > > aspect.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
> > Well, the man page, yes, would be a good indicator, but the commands
> > themselves?
> >
> > Where does gentoo get the source to build  test(1) or expr(1) or
> > date(1)?    That's in some package, but where is the upstream
> > source? Is it something in github?  Or a linux portal?  Or Torvalds
> > private server?  Or the gnu server?
> >
> >
>
> /usr/bin/test[1] was installed by sys-apps/coreutils[2], it's homepage
> is <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/>[3], that links to the
> source code repository.

For me the first and most obvious place to look at is
/usr/share/doc/<package>/. Usually there is NEWS or ChangeLog file or
both. Which <package> it is you can get from man page (it is written
at the end in the "footer") or with command

$ equery belongs `which <command>`.


--
Róbert ?er?anský
E-mail: openhs@tightmail.com