Is it possible to run a newer version of cloc (or any package) onto an older version of ubuntu?

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I have to work with ubuntu 14.04, but I need to use cloc 1.92. The highest cloc version via package update for Ubuntu is 1.6. https://packages.ubuntu.com/search?keywords=cloc I did a wget https://github.com/AlDanial/cloc/releases/download/v1.92/cloc-1.92.tar.gz to download this package to my machine, but it's not showing up in the package list when I do dpkg --list. I'm not sure how to make the cloc 1.92 folder run the same way that 1.6 does on my VM, or if it's even possible to do so.

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The git page for cloc explains all related aspects, and skimming over it, in the Why use cloc? section says that the "program is self-contained, only download and run it". This program is developed in Perl 5, present in all Ubuntu distros. You can check that with the command perl --version.

Simply extract the file cloc from the tar.gz and copy it in an appropiate directory, for example /usr/local/bin, and confirm it has the proper executable rights with the command chmod a+rx /usr/local/bin/cloc.

Caveat: cloc claims to use only standard Perl modules. If your installed Perl doesn't have all needed, you will have to install them using CPAN.

Edit: See the comments by Knud Larsen for manual installing as Ubuntu mantainers do.

In this case, as the program is run by an interpreter, it wasn't needed to compile it, but in general programs/libraries in source form could to be compiled and installed independently from the apt/dkpg package management, but could need other libraries/programs to operate. The mantainer of the distro ensures this dependencies are installed together with the desired package. If we want to compile/install manually, then also we have to compile/install all requirements of the program if they aren't there already.

In other cases, the additional required software for the package could be already installed in some older versions, but it is used by other installed programs that could fail if we install new versions. That is the main problem when updating software in older distros: We need to investigate and resolve any conflicts manually.

So, the second answer is: Yes, we can update software in older versions of Ubuntu, but could be impractical to do so.