How to know default software version for all Ubuntu software for a specific Ubuntu version?

The Wireshark version in Ubuntu 14.04 LTS is 1.12.1, but the latest Wireshark version is 2.6.0. The default php version is 5 but the latest php version is 7.

The sudo apt-get install command easily installs software, but sometimes it provides old versions.

So, if I can know the default version provided by a particular software package in a newer Ubuntu release, I can make a decision whether to upgrade my Ubuntu version or not.

Is there any Ubuntu release note/doc/chart that lists default software version for all Ubuntu software?

Solution 1:

Open the terminal and type:

sudo apt install devscripts  
rmadison <package-name> replace <package-name> with the name of the package  

Example

$ rmadison wireshark
 wireshark | 1.6.7-1                                  | precise/universe         | source, amd64, armel, armhf, i386, powerpc
 wireshark | 1.10.6-1                                 | trusty/universe          | source, amd64, arm64, armhf, i386, powerpc, ppc64el
 wireshark | 1.12.1+g01b65bf-4+deb8u11ubuntu0.14.04.1 | trusty-security/universe | source, amd64, arm64, armhf, i386, powerpc, ppc64el
 wireshark | 1.12.1+g01b65bf-4+deb8u11ubuntu0.14.04.1 | trusty-updates/universe  | source, amd64, arm64, armhf, i386, powerpc, ppc64el
 wireshark | 2.0.2+ga16e22e-1                         | xenial/universe          | source, amd64, arm64, armhf, i386, powerpc, ppc64el, s390x
 wireshark | 2.2.6+g32dac6a-2ubuntu0.16.04            | xenial-security/universe | source, amd64, arm64, armhf, i386, powerpc, ppc64el, s390x
 wireshark | 2.2.6+g32dac6a-2ubuntu0.16.04            | xenial-updates/universe  | source, amd64, arm64, armhf, i386, powerpc, ppc64el, s390x
 wireshark | 2.4.2-1                                  | artful/universe          | source, amd64, arm64, armhf, i386, ppc64el, s390x
 wireshark | 2.4.5-1                                  | bionic/universe          | source, amd64, arm64, armhf, i386, ppc64el, s390x
 wireshark | 2.4.6-1                                  | cosmic/universe          | source, amd64, arm64, armhf, i386, ppc64el, s390x

These results are all packages from the official Ubuntu repositories of the Ubuntu versions which are listed in the third column of the example rmadison results. Note that the results of rmadison also include results for Ubuntu 18.10 which is not officially released yet and Ubuntu 12.04 which is an End Of Life release.

If you can't remember the exact package name rmadison won't return any results, but this command will work:

firefox --new-tab https://packages.ubuntu.com/wireshar 

The above command relies on fuzzy keyword search, so it also returns results that you don't want.