How to tell which version of a application is running

[Ralf Mardorf]

On Tue, 18 Apr 2017 09:57:03 +0200, Xen wrote:
>NOT overwriting all files you can. By GOD. Stop this NONSENSE.

You are missing the context.

>Dpkg-divert is still the way to go people, it was not my suggestion,
>but it is.
>
>So thank you for that Ralf but please don't move the goalposts here.

No, this isn't the way to go and the only reason that I reply to your
rolling is to give a pinter to the right direction.

The safest way is to build the new version of "tracker" the official
Debian/Ubuntu way. Even this isn't absolutely safe, e.g. in regards to
possible soname issues, an upgrade might break the "tracker" packages
and/or other packages. _But_ taking the Ubuntu policy into account, if
it works now without causing a soname issue, then it's nearly
impossible, that this ever happens within an Ubuntu release.

As soon as a user does use third party packages or local packages,
issues could appear. However, as long as not a complex dependency
change is involved, which would be the case, if another release
of e.g. GNOME would be required, it's nearly completely safe to rebuild
packages the Debian/Ubuntu way. _Even_ if the self build packages
should cause serious issue, the package management would give clear
advices and it would be possible to e.g. replace them by the official
packages.

To build the tracker packages, the OP could download the Ubuntu source
package, replace the source code, but most likely could use the control
and rules file of the Ubuntu source package.

The steps are similar to

sudo apt-get source tracker # apt-get build-dep isn't needed, since the
                            # OP already was able to build tracker,
                            # but downloading and replacing the current
                            # source with the alternative, newer source
                            # is required
libtoolize --force --copy --automake # mabye needed, maybe not needed
aclocal                              # mabye needed, maybe not needed
autoreconf                           # mabye needed, maybe not needed
debuild -i -us -uc -b       # this is the important step to build the
                            # packages

I don't have all the detailed steps at hand, but this is the easiest
and most secure way. I more often build Arch packages, than Ubuntu
packages, but I've got no doubts somebody else could help the OP to
build the package.

Regards,
Ralf