Shadowing Practice: Debian Linux GNU Coreutils Situation Is Crazy - Learn English Speaking with Video
Creating lesson...
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TLDR, Debian literally never said they're swapping over to you, Uutils.
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To the best of my knowledge, it is not even remotely being considered.
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This is a complete and utter fabrication and misunderstanding of what took place on the Debian mailing list.
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If you want to know why, stick around a little bit longer.
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All of this started with this email from Collin Funk concerning unilateral decision making with respect to the core Utils package.
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Hi, let me begin by mentioning that I am an active contributor to the GNU core Utils.
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Very easy to confirm.
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Here is the GitHub mirror.
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As we can see, they are a quite active contributor.
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And the email they have right here, colin.funk1 at gmail.com is the same email that is on their account.
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This is the same person.
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They are not lying.
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They are a contributor.
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I mentioned this for transparency.
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Although this message primarily addresses social concerns I have rather than technical ones.
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Therefore, I hope it is not discarded for being biased.
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On May 8th, 2025, Julian Andres Klode requested the addition of the GNU core Utils package so that core Utils could be made a virtual package that dispatched to different providers.
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So that is a year ago.
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And that is right here in this separate bug report.
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When it loads.
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Thank you. The maintainer of the core Utils Debian package said that he would not make this change without discussion on Debian Develle.
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That is right here.
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Not at this time.
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And not without discussion on Dash Develle.
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And this is from Michael Stone.
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Keep that name in mind for a bit later.
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Which I feel is reasonable.
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Remember, the core Utils is an essential package and therefore needs to be treated with extra care.
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This change was obviously an attempt to make the lives of Canonical who employ Julian Andres Klode easier.
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Because Canonical, with Ubuntu, they have adopted Uutils.
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And if this is something that is available upstream and this is the default upstream, that is then less work for them to do.
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As far as I can tell, the request to discuss this on Debian devel was never respected.
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The only brief discussion of core Uutils on Debian devel since these events was some that noted the core Utils package in Debian Experimental used core Utils from packages to choose between GNU, UUtils, BusyBox, or ToyBox.
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This is an important point here.
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This was never a matter of just having UUtils replace GNU.
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What they were doing here, what the experiment was, was providing a meta package that let you easily swap between any of these four implementations.
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So you can go with the main GNU implementation, but the package would also have the ToyBox, the BusyBox, or the UUtils version.
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And that package can be found right here.
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Do note, this is experimental.
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This is not SID.
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This is not stable.
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This is experimental.
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This is a place where people are just throwing things at the wall.
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People are trying things.
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Things that are in experimental don't even necessarily make their way into something like SID.
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With that being the case, it's still a terrible idea for an experiment.
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Not because of UUtils though, because of BusyBox and ToyBox, far, far more mature projects.
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I don't think it makes sense to provide core Utils from packages for implementations that aren't striving for full core Utils compatibility.
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ToyBox and BusyBox are not trying to be GNU.
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They are trying to be much, much lighter implementations.
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They don't have all of the same GNU extensions.
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They don't have all of the same GNU bugs.
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And if you just replace GNU with BusyBox, you're going to break a lot of things because it's not GNU.
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At the very least, with UUtils, its ultimate goal is to implement GNU.
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Allowing multiple core Utils implementations change the features that maintainer scripts can expect to be available and restrict them to POSIX only.
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People already started filing bugs about that.
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This will also likely cause many packages to FTBFS or provide different content.
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For instance, core Utils from BusyBox, which seems to be installed by default as part of the upgrade with this number right here, does not provide the dash M or dash S options of RealPath.
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Their replacement by fully POSIX code is not trivial, and I am worried that this will end up with different open coded version of it with various kinds of bugs, possibly serious ones.
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Now pay very close attention to that.
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At this time, BusyBox was the default with this package, but nobody made any noise about BusyBox whatsoever.
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BusyBox also does not fully implement GNU.
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The difference between UUtils and BusyBox though, BusyBox has the express purpose of not doing that.
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But nobody said a word.
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Nobody cared.
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Later on when Colin tried it though, UUtils was the default with that package.
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Again, in Debian Experimental, which is not Debian Sid.
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It is not Debian Stable.
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It is the testing ground for random throw-at-the-wall ideas.
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The main crux of this argument though, comes to this.
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I also noticed that the UUtils website says the following.
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Debian is also following Ubuntu's path toward making UUtils the default.
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A Google Summer of Code 2024 project, improved support of the Rust Core Uutils in Debian, was mentored to accelerate the integration.
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The package is also inherited by downstream Debian-based distributions, including Raspbian, Kali Linux, ParrotOS, PureOS, Deepin23, and obviously Ubuntu would be in there somewhere.
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If we go to the UUtils website though, you will notice that that statement isn't actually there.
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It's not that it never existed.
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It was added about seven or so hours before that email was sent.
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We'll get to why it's gone in just a sec.
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Firstly, let's finish that email.
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It seems that a small handful of people are unilaterally making the decision to switch the default Debian install from GNU Core Uutils to UUtils Core Uutils, which concerns me.
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I had hoped the plan was to bring this up on Debian Devel as originally requested, but I've not seen any indication that is the case over the past few months.
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The decision to change to UUtils Core Uutils in Ubuntu was quite controversial, as can easily be seen in various forum posts and bug reports.
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I believe these changes which seem to be intentionally made in secret are an attempt to avoid reigniting said controversy.
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I can understand this, as many have strong opinions as I do, and express them rudely, which is part of the reason I've avoided linking them.
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However, I do not believe that it is best for Debian if decisions like this are made unilaterally in secret.
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Therefore, I'm bringing awareness of this to Debian Devel.
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Shortly after, Sylvestre Ledrue responded.
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Sylvestre Ledrue is the lead maintainer of the UUtils project, the person who made this change to the UUtils website, who writes UUtils alongside some other people, but they're the main guy.
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In response to the quote from his website, he says, it was poorly phrased.
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I updated the wording and made this change here.
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Remove incorrect info.
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Removing the part that said Debian is also following Ubuntu's path toward making UUtils the default, and also adding potential integration.
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Not saying it is going to happen, saying it might happen.
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And you know what?
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I might win the lottery.
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Lots of things might happen.
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Doesn't mean it's going to.
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Except a single email, I haven't been involved in any conversation for Debian on UUtils versus GNU CoreUtils.
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I wasn't even aware of the experimental work.
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Adding further to this, Michael Stone, who again, is the maintainer of the CoreUtils package on Debian, note that the experimental package uploaded over a year ago with version 9.7-999 is a lower number than the current version in SID slash Forky 9.10-1.
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As far as I know, this was an experiment in experimental, and I have been given no indication that there is an intent to upload to unstable without further public discussion and consensus.
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And this is the guy that maintains the CoreUtils package.
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Now, there are absolutely reasons to not like UUtils.
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As outlined by Ted Tso, I will note that Ubuntu's rewriter CoreUtils breaks a number of test suites, including XFS tests, because its outputs are different, and this breaks golden output comparisons.
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I expect it'll also break various scripts that sysadmins have in production.
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Bug reports about FSTests being broken on Ubuntu have been rejected because it's perceived by kernel developers as Ubuntu just being silly.
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Given that some rather the primary test regression is based on Debian, I would consider unfortunate and regrettable if CoreUtils were replaced by Canonical's Rust rewrite.
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And that's before we consider the over 100 CVEs that were introduced by the rewrite of CoreUtils.
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They also recently had this issue where it broke Ubuntu image builds, and whilst things have been getting better with the test suite, there is still quite a lot of the test suite which is not yet being successfully handled.
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Some people have said, oh, look at that, the number of tests that failed, they went up.
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No, no, no.
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No, no, no.
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The number of tests that failed went up because they added more tests that they were covering.
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They weren't actually doing all of the tests in the first place.
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UUtils is absolutely far from perfect.
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There is still a lot of work to be done, and this is why most distros have not yet adopted it.
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But let's focus on things which are actually happening.
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This should have been the end of the discussion.
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It was not the end of the discussion because eventually Julian Andrus Klode, who was originally mentioned by Colin Funk, decided to respond.
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Just for the record, I added BusyBox and ToyBox variants and uploaded the package to Experimental per Helmut's request as he wanted to explore those alternatives.
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Whether Debian wants to switch or not is not my decision.
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Debian has a procedure for making changes, which is the maintainer doing whatever the F they want, and if anyone disagrees, escalating to the CTTE if necessary.
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The maintainer chose to delegate their decision process to the mailing list, which is their prerogative.
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But I do not have the means to start, lead, or even participate in discussions, so I offer the experiment that was requested, and if anyone wants to pursue this further, that's on them to coordinate.
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Basically, somebody requested, hey, this would be an interesting idea to explore, let's do it in Experimental, and that was basically the end of it.
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If anyone else wants to take it further, that's on them.
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Back to Colin, just for the record, my issue is not at all with you adding variants, uutils or otherwise.
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My issue is with you silently changing the CoreUtils package to be uutils CoreUtils.
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Your message does nothing to address that point.
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Again, this is in Experimental, which is not shipping to anyone, and also hadn't been touched in a very long time.
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This is from months and months ago.
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Also, as mentioned in my previous message, changing essential packages is not necessarily up to maintainer to do whatever the F they want.
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Again, experimental.
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If this was going to be something that made its way into Unstable, into Stable, then it would go through that discourse.
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Just to reiterate, I had seen the Experimental update months ago, I agree that it's perfectly fine to do that.
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The only reason I became concerned was upon seeing this text on a site managed by another Debian developer who does not maintain the CoreUtils package.
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Debian is also following Ubuntu's path toward making uutils the default.
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Considering that he's not maintaining the package, that should be a sign to you that maybe something is off here.
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I do not think it is an unreasonable assumption to think that one would discuss this on Debian develop before making definitive claims like this.
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Basically, his entire argument boils down to somebody on a third-party website who happens to also be a Debian maintainer said something that was wrong.
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That's basically the argument here.
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From Peter Penchev, well, in my opinion, it kind of is unreasonable.
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Since the pack of maintainers said that no change would be made without discussion, another developer making a non-maintainer upload of CoreUtils to Unstable, not experimental, which is the place it actually did happen, would really be extremely, and I do mean extremely unusual, and it would be a cause for concern, but it never happened.
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So your main worry stems from a sentence on the Uutils website, which has already been removed, possibly as a result of this thread.
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No, directly as a result of this thread.
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This is a problem you have about a statement that no longer exists because you pointed out it was wrong, and then the developer agreed that it was wrong, and then removed it.
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So everything's fixed.
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Everything is done here.
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But another conversation stemmed off of this.
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From Henryk Paluch, probably mispronounced your name.
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Thank to Git, we can find exactly who and when published a statement that sparked this thread.
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As I showed you earlier, it was introduced here.
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It would be nice if Sylvestre Ledrue would explain on what source is based his claim that Debian is moving to Uutils.
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Do you want to know the source?
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He was overzealous in his claim.
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That was his source.
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That's it. And when it was pointed out to him, he removed it.
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From Thomas Goyrand, I'm sure Sylvestre had the best intention.
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Asking him to explain himself when so much has been said about this and when he already backed off feels like bullying.
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It'd be nice if we tried to understand each other regardless of whether we decide on the GNU core Uutils versus Uutils.
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This should be water under the bridge now.
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Even Colin Funk, who was the one that started the entire discourse, says, I agree that this feels like bullying.
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However, I don't disagree with Henryk that the plan doesn't feel dismissed.
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Notice the site still says under the Why section, Ubuntu is already carefully but purposely adopting Uutils core Uutils.
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Debian is following the same path and Microsoft offers it as well.
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Again, this is a statement from a third party website about something that is not happening.
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There is no plan.
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There is no discourse that is happening here.
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To that, Chris Hofsteadler replies, This site is not a Debian resource.
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Discussing it on the Debian devel seems moot.
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As long as there is nothing actually happening in Debian, let's please just close this discussion without further moving goalposts and accusing people.
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Everything is done.
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There is nothing to discuss here.
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That doesn't stop people wanting to discuss things.
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Henryk has another response, quite a long one this time.
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If you want to go and read through all of this, feel free to do so.
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But keep in mind, this is a bunch of problems about a thing that is not happening.
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Literally not happening.
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Like, at all, there is a huge impact of switching to Rust core utils in Debian.
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Not happening though.
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It's just not happening.
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From there, Sylvestre Ledrue replied, As highlighted before, it feels like harassment and I'm not interested to have this conversation with you.
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Please don't cc me in the future.
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However, I am happy to have the conversation with my fellow Debian developers, all the amazing, and I mean it, GNU core utils maintainers like Colin.
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This is what he means by it feels like harassment.
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He is not talking about, you know, discussions about UUtils, the merits of the project, should we swap to it, shouldn't we swap to it.
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He is talking about people constantly harping on about Debian swapping to UUtils, which, he removed the statement about it happening because it's not happening.
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Any further discussion after that point is useless because you're discussing something that is not taking place, that nobody is pushing for, that is not happening, that he even removed the wrong statement about over a week ago.
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Also, for anyone who thinks that Sylvestre hates core utils and is trying to kill core utils, have you looked at who the latest commits from?
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It's from Sylvestre.
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Sylvestre contributes code to core utils.
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I bet you didn't know that.
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Now, it is primarily in the context of test suites because he's building his own core Uutils implementation.
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There's going to be a bunch of areas where things are not properly being tested.
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There are assumptions being made about how something should work, but nobody's actually formalized the test for it.
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Just so we're on the same page here, so everyone understands what took place here about a year ago.
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A package was made in Debian Experimental, which is the place for doing experiments, not necessarily going to be adopted, for turning core Uutils into a meta package, which then links out into other implementations of core utils.
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Uutils being one of them, but it had Toybox, Busybox, and the GNU version as well.
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The GNU version, the one that most of us are using.
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Then back in June of this year, a core utils developer decided to discuss this and found a message on the Uutils website that basically said that Debian was going to swap to Uutils sometime in the future.
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The Uutils maintainer saw this email and said, you know what?
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I was overzealous with this and removed the comment from the website.
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The package that had been in experimental for over a year is still an experimental because it's an experiment and it hasn't really been worked on.
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It's actually older than the packages that are in mainline Debian.
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Then after it was removed, people kept bugging Sylvestre, the maintainer of Uutils, about a statement he already stepped back from that he already removed from the website.
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He gets annoyed and now people think that Debian is switching to Uutils and Sylvestre is the mastermind behind this and refuses to have a conversation about it even though he has nothing to do with anything going on now and Debian isn't even having the discussion about going over to Uutils.
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As I said earlier, if you don't like Uutils, hey, totally fine.
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Criticize it.
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Say whatever you want about it.
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But at least talk about things that are happening.
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That's my bare minimum.
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At least talk about reality.
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With that being said, if you liked the video, go like the video, go subscribe and go tell me how much you hate Uutils and how you hate the Debian is swapping to Uutils in the comments and I don't understand what is happening.
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Anyway, like the video, like the video, subscribe as well and if you really liked the video and you want to become one of these amazing people over here, check out the Patreon subscribe to LiberaPay linked in the description down below.
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That's going to be it for me and Deb, I am.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This C1 speaking lesson is built on the video “Debian Linux GNU Coreutils Situation Is Crazy”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: uutils, Debian, core, package, utils. This video has 215 sentences and 3195 words to shadow. The speech runs for 19:50. The speaker talks at a natural 161 words per minute, close to everyday conversation. Only 78% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is demanding.
Key vocabulary in this video
The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| util noun | /ˈjuːˌtɪl/ | A hypothetical unit measuring satisfaction. |
| maintainer noun | /meɪnˈteɪnə/ | Someone who keeps or upholds something; a steward. |
| swap verb | /ˈswɑp/ | To exchange or give (something) in an non-normal exchange (for something else). |
| devvel verb | To hit (something) hard. | |
| funk noun | /fʌŋk/ | Foul or unpleasant smell, especially body odor. |
| upload verb | /ˈʌpˌloʊd/ | To transfer data to a computer on a network, especially to a server on the Internet. |
| contributor noun | /kənˈtɹɪb.jə.tɚ/ | A benefactor; someone who donates to charity or some cause. |
| discourse noun | /ˈdɪs.kɔːɹs/ | Expression in words, either speech or writing. |
| unstable adjective | /ʌnˈsteɪ.bəl/ | Not stable. |
| dash noun | /ˈdæʃ/ | Any of the following symbols: ‒ (figure dash), – (en dash), — (em dash), or ― (horizontal bar). |
| subscribe verb | /səbˈskɹaɪb/ | To write (one’s name) at the bottom of a document; to sign (one's name). |
| overzealous adjective | /ˌəʊvəˈzɛləs/ | Too zealous; too enthusiastic or fervent. |
| rewrite verb | /ɹiˈɹaɪt/ | To write again, differently; to modify; to revise. |
| unilaterally adverb | In a unilateral or one-sided way. | |
| upstream adjective | /ʌpˈstɹiːm/ | In a direction against the flow of a current or stream of fluid (typically water); upriver. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| go up verb | To move upwards. |
| back off verb | To move backwards away from something. |
| check out verb | To record the departure or withdrawal of someone or something (such as guests, employees, books, etc.). |
| go through verb | To travel from one end of something to the other. |
| point out verb | To identify among a group of similar subjects, or in a scene where the subject might not be readily seen or noticed, with a gesture of the body. |
| read through verb | To thoroughly read something to check or proofread it. |
| stick around verb | To stay; to linger; to remain. |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- Firstly, let's finish that email.
- I wasn't even aware of the experimental work.
- Do you want to know the source?
- Please don't cc me in the future.
- I bet you didn't know that.
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Conditional sentences if + clause, will/would + verb — a condition and its result | if Sylvestre Ledrue would explain |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | have adopted · I've not seen · I've avoided |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | being considered · is not discarded · could be made |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | Experimental, which is · rudely, which is · person who made |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 34 contractions and reduced forms, such as don't, doesn't, I'm. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: dash /ˈdæʃ/, indication /ɪndɪˈkeɪʃən/, assumption /əˈsʌm(p).ʃ(ə)n/, fabrication /fæbɹɪˈkeɪʃən/, regression /ɹiːˈɡɹɛʃ.ən/
- Long words — get the stress right: contributor /kənˈtɹɪb.jə.tɚ/, overzealous /ˌəʊvəˈzɛləs/, unreasonable /ʌnˈɹiːz.(ə)nə.bl̩/, indication /ɪndɪˈkeɪʃən/, fabrication /fæbɹɪˈkeɪʃən/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like util, maintainer, swap.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.