Core Utilities uname Quirk
After updating the office desktop to Slackware 15.0, several shell scripts and cron jobs failed, including important hourly backups. Investigating revealed that the uname -n output had changed.
In Slackware 14.2 the output of uname -n is the equivalent of hostname -s. In Slackware 15.0 the output is the equivalent of hostname -f.
The fix was straightforward. In the failing scripts and cron jobs change uname -n to hostname -s. Then update all other shell scripts with the same change.
Newer is not always better.
Problem solved but Yet Another Example why updating computers is so frustrating.
Something always breaks. Always.
Posted: Category: Usability Tagged: Slackware
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