How to install stable and ~fresh Pandoc on UBUNTU?

Question

"Near fresh" here means "reasonably new", nowadays, "same year" or "1 year old"... Maybe "2 years old" also reasonable.

I used apt install pandoc today at UBUNTU 16 LTS, and for my surprise it is not a "fresh version", a very old version was installed: pandoc --version is 1.16.0.2 (of 2015!!) instead a 2019 version, v2.9. Out of curiosity I did the same on other machine with UBUNTU 18 LTS, same ugly surprise.

How to install stable "recent Pandoc", and not a 5 years-old version?
Or how to upgrade it by "plug and play mode"?

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PS: internet/google show nothing, only very confuse comments. Install page also very confuse. No "clean and objective" install instruction for apt neither upgrade... Only other topic, "cabal update".

Margherita

Answer 1

        ((please edit and update if necessary: this answer is a Wiki!))

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The command line when I type "pandoc" on the UBUNTU terminal is
"use apt install pandoc"... It is bad instruction!

... And the installing page don't say that it's an ugly 5 years-old version!
It say to check UBUNTU method for "stable version" (it is not stable, it is "ugly version")...
Them, after disaster, the Pandoc's Linux installaing page finally says:

To get the latest release, we provide a binary package for amd64 architecture on the download page.

So, the full instruction is:

1. Purge apt installed, you must "undo" the bad instruction.
   apt purge pandoc
2. Get fresh .deb at Pandoc's git/releases. Example:
   wget https://github.com/jgm/pandoc/releases/download/2.9.2.1/pandoc-2.9.2.1-1-amd64.deb
3. Install. Example:
   sudo dpkg -i pandoc-2.9.2.1-1-amd64.deb

Margherita

Does anyone out there know why Ubuntu repositories continue to host such outdated versions of pandoc? Today I did a sudo apt install pandoc on my 20.04 machine, and it brought me version 2.5 from 2018! (Don't get me wrong, I'm OK getting the latest deb from github and then installing that by hand. But why?) On most other packages, repo maintainers seem eager to outdo one another in hosting up to the minute latest versions. But not pandoc. Is there some reason the rest of us should know? – Fijian

Hi @DannyQuah, please help at github.com/jgm/pandoc/issues/8881 – Margherita

Thanks for the shout-out but it looks like you've already solved the problem yourself, i.e., download the latest version from pandoc.org/installing.html , and for Ubuntu, provided you've chosen a deb, as above sudo dpkg -i pandoc-LATEST-then-PROCESSOR.deb. I don't yet know the answer to my question about why, though. Sorry. – Fijian

Hi @DannyQuah, sorry my English, I was looking for a help talking to the "Ubuntu packaging" community (or pandoc developers), to order a better version control in apt install. – Margherita