[Techtalk] what the heck is it with locale and ls -l -- recap with correct outputs

[Akkana Peck]

Carla Schroder writes:
> Heh, sorry for mail-bombing the list-- I keep getting mixed up and posting 
> mistakes. So here is a recap for the benefit of anyone following alone, with 
> correct outputs:
> 
> Two distros: Mint 12 and Fedora 16
> 
> Mint 12 has coreutils 8.5
> Fedora 16 has coreutils 8.2
> 
> Both have the same locale: en_US.UTF-8

I was going to guess that's the difference: I've noticed lots of
changes in format and flag behavior in ls over the past few years,
and keep having to change my shell aliases accordingly.

But then I tried it on Ubuntu ocelot (2012-02-23 12:20 style)
and Debian squeeze (Sep 15  2010 style), and they both have
coreutils 8.5-1. (Locale en_US.UTF-8 both places.) So that's not it.

At this point, I know it's a hassle, but if you need a definitive
answer you might have to go to the source. It's sad, but sometimes
that's the only "documentation" that's worth anything.
apt-get source coreutils on Mint, and I forget what the Fedora
equivalent is. Check the distro-specific change logs first since
it's possible this is explicitly being changed in one distro or
the other.

	...Akkana