The pg command is missing in LM 19!?

[bmillham]

I upgraded one system and did a new install on another, and the pg command is missing! I know I can use more, but I've been using pg for so long...

I tried sudo apt install pg, but no go there. Any ideas how to get pg back?

Thanks!

[smurphos]

It's gone - it was part of the utils-linux package - dropped a few versions ago

From https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ut ... 2-2ubuntu1

util-linux (2.29.2-2) unstable; urgency=medium

"The big post-release cleanup."

[ Andreas Henriksson ]
* Add DEP12 upstream metadata (Closes: #852731)
* Revert "Add configure flag to make libmount skip /etc/mtab"
* Drop explicit --disable-silent-rules configure flag
* Stop shipping the deprecated 'pg' utility
* Revert "Explicitly (re)enable deprecated pg utility"
* Stop shipping deprecated 'tunelp' utility
* Stop shipping the deprecated 'line' utility
* Drop explicitly passing CC for cross-building
* Use configure flags to disable utils shipped by bsdmainutils
* Revert "Attempt to work around debootstrap problems for hwclock.sh"
* Drop no longer needed lintian overrides for dropped workaround
* Drop obsolete fdisk reclaim on PPC
* Revert "Rename libuuid user to uuidd in libuuidd1 postinst as well"
* Revert "libuuid1: add passwd dependency for user migration"
* Drop obsolete uuid-runtime user/group migration code
* Remove 'pg' from being a pager alternative
* Stop shipping deprecated tailf utility
* Mention tailf removal in util-linux.NEWS

[bmillham]

Thanks for the info. And that's just strange. I never knew that pg could be a security issue. I guess I'll have to re-teach my fingers to type more (and as an aside, when I worked for Bell Labs in my past, more was the normal Unix command. pg came later)

Is there something other than more that's similar to pg?

[jimallyn]

I had never heard of pg before. more is still available, as is the improved version, less.

[karlchen]

The command pg is a very old command. Older than Linux Mint and older even than Ubuntu. First time came across it on something called Microsoft Xenix and SCO Unix during the last decade of the previous century.
But pg managed to survive well hidden among all the other executables located in /usr/bin and is still present in Linux Mint 18.x e.g.

Code: Select all

$ inxi -Sx
System:    Host: unimatrix0 Kernel: 4.4.0-130-generic i686 bits: 32 compiler: gcc v: 5.4.0 Desktop: Xfce 4.12.3 
           tk: Gtk 2.24.28 Distro: Linux Mint 18.1 Serena base: Ubuntu 16.04 LTS Xenial 
$ which pg
/usr/bin/pg

Code: Select all

$ pg --help
Usage:
 pg [options] [+line] [+/pattern/] [files]
Browse pagewise through text files.
[...]

[jimallyn]

But pg managed to survive well hidden among all the other executables located in /usr/bin and is still present in Linux Mint 18.x e.g.

It's in 17.x also. But not in 19.

[mydoll]

Unfortunately there can be a lot of legacy scripts around that depended upon 'pg' being available. For compatibility, is the source around to rebuild it?