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We noticed that wget on Amazon Linux 2 is v1.14, but on the older version of Amazon Linux, it was v1.18.

Any idea why this would be? I'm fairly certain we installed from yum in both cases.

Is there a way to get yum to install a more modern wget under Amazon Linux 2?

"repoquery -i wget" on Amazon Linux 1:

Name        : wget
Version     : 1.18
Release     : 5.30.amzn1
Architecture: x86_64
Size        : 2497696
Packager    : Amazon.com, Inc. <http://aws.amazon.com>
Group       : Applications/Internet
URL         : http://www.gnu.org/software/wget/
Repository  : amzn-updates
Summary     : A utility for retrieving files using the HTTP or FTP protocols
Source      : wget-1.18-5.30.amzn1.src.rpm

and on Amazon Linux 2:

Name        : wget
Version     : 1.14
Release     : 18.amzn2
Architecture: x86_64
Size        : 2050885
Packager    : Amazon Linux
Group       : Applications/Internet
URL         : http://www.gnu.org/software/wget/
Repository  : amzn2-core
Summary     : A utility for retrieving files using the HTTP or FTP protocols
Source      : wget-1.14-18.amzn2.src.rpm

(Note: previously posted at https://stackoverflow.com/questions/56060472/why-does-amazon-linux-2-have-older-version-of-wget-vs-amazon-linux-1 but did not get any responses there)

boozedog
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1 Answers1

5

Amazon Linux does not update packages regularly. I've found I need to download source and build software a lot more on Amazon Linux / AL2 than Ubuntu, Centos, or Red Hat. The Amazon Linux package repository packages are usually out of date. I don't even bother with them for some software any more - Nginx, Apache, Fail2ban. I do use the Amazon repository for MySQL, PHP 5.6, and things that are very mature and not open to the internet directly.

When I'm installing servers on AWS for myself or smaller businesses I prefer to use Ubuntu, because the package repositories are kept up to date well and there's a massive amount of community support.

When I'm doing enterprise work you use what they specify, but it tends to be Red Hat, Centos or Windows Server. Sometimes an enterprise will use Amazon Linux, which tends to be ok since they have the staff and budget to set it up properly, install or build software, and maintain it, and a lot of that is done by tools like Ansible.

Tim
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