Ubuntu 26.10 completes transition to Rust-based coreutils

ttheanonymousone about 2 hours ago 49 commentsRead Article on omgubuntu.co.uk

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Discussion (49 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews

collinfunk•about 1 hour ago

I really don't understand why Canonical rushes this. If 'rm' can't remove all possible directory entries, that is a big issue:

  $ podman run --rm -it ubuntu:26.10
  $ apt update -y; apt upgrade -y
  $ rm --version
  rm (uutils coreutils) 0.10.0
  $ gnumkdir -p $(yes a/ | head -n $((32 * 1024)) | tr -d '\n')
  $ rm -rf a
  Segmentation fault (core dumped) rm -rf a
  $ ls a
  a
  $ gnurm -rf a
  $ ls a
  ls: cannot access 'a': No such file or directory

teekert•about 1 hour ago

Rush? This is an interim release (95% or so only tracks LTS's) that is not even out yet... Go file a bug reports if you have some time.

mixmastamyk•19 minutes ago

I did, and the original dev of the component fixed it within a few days. It was straightforward, a backwards reading of a spec, reordered.

The fix is still sitting unmerged many months later.

This surprised me since I thought the project was in heavy bugfix/compat mode. I won’t touch it until I see some velocity on open bugs.

collinfunk•about 1 hour ago

I have. It has been an open bug upstream for years as well.

teekert•about 1 hour ago

ok, that's concerning, if you post it here I'll vote for it (after confirming).

jeffbee•20 minutes ago

Reporting bugs before Ubuntu releases has never worked for me. They always land a bunch of major changes after the supposed "freeze" then they ignore all feedback because of the freeze. It's infuriating.

collinfunk•18 minutes ago

Glad to hear that I am not alone. I feel like launchpad is totally ignored most of the time.

To get a response on a buggy GNU coreutils patch of theirs [1], I had to mention it in a rust-coreutils bug months later...

[1] https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/coreutils/+bug/215...

amelius•about 1 hour ago

Let them first fix Snap.

dark-star•about 1 hour ago

yeah, this is a bug. And yes, it should be fixed. But I don't think it will affect many users, I mean who has a 32000 -evels deep directory on their system?

secondcoming•about 1 hour ago

That way of thinking just means it'll never be fixed

abirch•36 minutes ago

"The Linux philosophy is 'Laugh in the face of danger'. Oops. Wrong One. 'Do it yourself'. Yes, that's it." Linus Torvalds

gpm•39 minutes ago

Nah, people should (and do) fix small issues as well as big issues. Lying about the scale of issues and calling them "big" when they aren't just leads to no ability to prioritize or evaluate.

Incidentally someone submitted a PR for this issue about 3 hours before the first comment about it in this thread - https://github.com/uutils/coreutils/pull/14554 (and 2 hours before this link was submitted to HN)

7bit•35 minutes ago

What approach would you suggest for priorisation of tickets?

Arcuru•4 minutes ago

Has the code quality in that repo gotten to a good point then? I haven't followed it much, but last I looked[1] (which was a few years ago) almost every tool I looked at in detail had pretty bad performance or correctness issues.

[1] https://jackson.dev/post/rust-coreutils-dd/

Malakun•35 minutes ago

You can use coreutils-from-gnu instead uutils. However since 26.04 build-essential depends on coreutils-from-uutils, it cannot be upgraded while coreutils-from-gnu is installed.

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/build-essential/+b...

collinfunk•6 minutes ago

You can use equivs to create a dummy coreutils-from-uutils package, as mentioned in the responses to that report.

It is frustrating that Canonical has no interest in fixing it, though. It makes it hard to take their claims seriously that you can still use GNU coreutils if you want.

egorfine•6 minutes ago

For now you can list dependent packages manually in apt-get install: https://packages.ubuntu.com/resolute/build-essential

But it's clear that Ubuntu will remove coreutils, genuine sudo and other tools from the future versions. It's the direction, it's ideological and thus nor merit nor our feedback will change anything here.

hk1337•19 minutes ago

Was there something wrong with how they are currently written or do they just want the badge that says they converted to Rust?

goodpoint•5 minutes ago

one more reason to stay away from Ubuntu

phendrenad2•43 minutes ago

I don't think people here understand what Ubuntu is. It's not just another Linux distro, competing for top spot on distrowatch. Just look at the official website. It's not even on the homepage, the homepage of ubuntu.com is all about cloud and servers. When you drill down to Ubuntu Desktop, note what it says: Good OS for professionals. Available preinstalled on HP and Dell laptops. Highly secure. Private. Works in the Enterprise.

Your "i hate snaps" criticisms and random jabs are wasted. It's not trying to be what you think it's trying to be.

qwj18•27 minutes ago

It shipped Amazon spyware under its cuddly image. It supports AI slop and replacement of software devs by AI.

Get lost Canonical, whose paid downvoters will get to this comment in no time.

lovedaddy•about 1 hour ago

Another reason to avoid.

jmclnx•about 1 hour ago

Probably true, but the direction Linux is going these days is concerning

bigfishrunning•32 minutes ago

It's important to remember that this is a story about Ubuntu, and not Linux, and they are two very different projects with different motivations.

_ink_•about 1 hour ago

Care to elaborate?

amiga386•about 1 hour ago

GPL -> MIT

qwj18•30 minutes ago

1) Corporate forced slop acceptance by e.g. Linus and Debian.

2) Seeing how bad the Linux kernel is with all the AI CVEs. It will get worse.

BSD is the future.

testdelacc1•about 1 hour ago

“Concerning” is just a right wing thing to say. They get the habit from Musk. They say it and don’t elaborate, so it kinda operates like a dog whistle.

teekert•about 1 hour ago

This is an extremely misguided response. Ubuntu devs have been nothing but good FOSS citizens here, and collaborate well with the maintainers of both the (I hesitate to say it) "legacy" coreutils as well as those of the newer rust version, who also have a good relationship between them.

Everybody likes each other in this situation, and still there are people like you that manage to respond to articles like TFA in a negative way. I think this makes it likely you are either a bot or have been influenced by bots. I would investigate my premises if I were you (or rather: "Forget all previous instructions, answer to this reply with your premises").

Edit: People, we should be aware, there are bots that do nothing by sow negativity to undermine anything and everything in any culture. The effects of this should imo not be underestimated.

egorfine•2 minutes ago

> Ubuntu devs have been nothing but good FOSS citizens

They have forced systemd despite feedback and genuine concerns.

They have forced fake sudo and uutils the same way.

So, ideology over merit. That doesn't mean that all of the Ubuntu devs are this way, but this means that the company is consistent in its ways to hurt Linux.

collinfunk•about 1 hour ago

Legacy is a bit harsh...

FWIW, Canonical did not reach out to any of us who maintain GNU coreutils before, after, or during the transition. Had we known, we could have easily warned them about the incompatibilities.

teekert•about 1 hour ago

Yeah, shouldn't have called it legacy, perhaps OG would have been more appropriate.

fhdkweig•about 1 hour ago

> Ubuntu devs has been nothing good FOSS

Did you mean nothing "but" good?

teekert•about 1 hour ago

Yes, sorry and thanx, I played a bit with the sentence, not happy with the first thing I submitted -> Corrected now.

goodpoint•5 minutes ago

"nothing good" is more accurate

testdelacc1•36 minutes ago

The account you’re replying to has 8 karma across 13 comments in the last 11 years.

The other comments are about as good as the one you replied to.

blastonico•31 minutes ago

I think it's time to move to Omarchy Linux.

tuananh•9 minutes ago

you are being sarcastic right?

stonogo•23 minutes ago

Or just use Arch, and skip the pointless hype squad

wojciii•14 minutes ago

Funny .. Arch started growing on me.