[NCLUG] root/superuser pwd question

[Bob Proulx]

John L. Bass wrote:
> I just wish they would STOP needless changes to user interfaces that 
> have stood for 30 years or more in some cases, especially for command 
> line tools that break tens of thousands of scripts world wide, and take 
> several times that in labor hours to track down and fix everywhere. 
> Stupid changes like "tail -2" having to be changed to "tail -n 2", and 
> sort, and other tools just because someone decided to create a new 
> commandline UI standard.

The NEWS entry from GNU coreutils release 5.90 (2005-09-29):

  Bring back support for `head -NUM', `tail -NUM', etc. even when
  conforming to POSIX 1003.1-2001.  The following changes apply only
  when conforming to POSIX 1003.1-2001; there is no effect when
  conforming to older POSIX versions.

  The following usages now behave just as when conforming to older POSIX:
  ...
  tail -[NUM][bcl][f] [FILE]
  ...
  [There is also a discussion of further usage around '+' but that isn't
  what you referred to and so I won't repeat it here.]

So things are now as they were before.  It has been three years now.
System Stable releases never saw this but of course Unstable ones
tracking upstream did, complained, and eventually the problem was
worked out.

Bob