Very confused about updating exiftool (solved)

[dln949]

Ubuntu 18.04.2. 

exiftool 10.80-1.

I read the page about installing exiftool, but that does not address my problem.  I tried searching the forum, but I could find nothing helpful.  I think I might just not be using the correct search terms. 

I installed exiftool on this computer LONG ago, I don't even recall how.  Today I see there is a new version of exiftool, 12.01.  I downloaded the tar file, but then I wasn't sure what to do next: 

1)  Do I first need to uninstall the old version?  If so, how do I do that?  (I no longer have the original tar file for that version.) 

2)  When I run   sudo apt install exiftool, I get this output: 

Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Note, selecting 'libimage-exiftool-perl' instead of 'exiftool'
libimage-exiftool-perl is already the newest version (10.80-1).
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.

I don't know what that is trying to tell me - what is this libimage-exiftool-perl thingy it is talking about, and why should I care about that? 

3)  Should I be installing (and managing updates) via apt, or should I be downloading the tar file from the exiftool site? 


Thanks for any help. 

[StarGeek]

I'm not a Linux user, so I can't provide many details, but if you can figure out where the old exiftool is locate, you can extract the new version right over it. 

See Install Unix for full details.

[Phil Harvey]

It sounds like your package manager (via apt-get) isn't keeping up with the new ExifTool releases very well.  I have nothing to do with these packages.

For the latest version, go to the ExifTool home page and refer the the installation instructions that StarGeek gave.  With any luck you won't have a conflict, but doing exiftool -ver will tell you the version you are running, and if there is a version problem with the libraries.

- Phil

[dln949]

That approach seems to have worked.  Thanks to both of you. 

I guess going forward I'll need to monitor the exiftool home page for updates.