A query about backports and command line youtube downloaders

[Bret Busby]

Hello.

On the Debian users mailing list, is a message;

"
 > The site https://ytdl-org.github.io/youtube-dl/download.html
 >
 > is blocked?
 >
 > Is there any other alternative to download videos from Youtube in
 > Linux command line?

That site works here, but I don't think that's important. It appears
to offer youtube-dl 2021.12.17, which is /ancient/.

You'd be better off just installing Debian's yt-dlp in the usual
manner. And you can do better than that at the moment, by using
the backports version, 2024.04.09-1~bpo12+1.

If the backports version falls behind, you can usually install the
version from unstable (now trixie), because yt-dlp's dependencies
are all unversioned. The medium term disadvantage of this approach
is that it won't be upgraded automatically when a new version
appears: you have to keep an eye out.
"

I have not been able to get yt-dlp working, and, having previously used 
youtube-dl, have been unable to use it, for at least a year, apparently 
due to the actions of youtube having blocked the use of the version that 
I have of youtube-dl .

My sources list file includes

"
deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu jammy main restricted universe 
multiverse
deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu jammy-updates main restricted 
universe multiverse
deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu jammy-backports main restricted 
universe multiverse

deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ jammy-security main restricted 
universe multiverse
"

In Synaptic, in searching for youtube-dl, I get,
for youtube-dl, both installed version and latest version, 2021.12.17-1
and for yt-dlp, both installed version and latest version, 2022.04.08-1

So, I am wondering how I find whether these versions that I have, are 
the versions from the  ubuntu jammy-backports repository, and, how I 
find what version of a package, is in the ubuntu jammy-backports repository.

I am assuming that the Update Manager (Mate) searches the backports 
repository, for the latest version of each package?

....
Bret Busby
Armadale
Western Australia
(UTC+0800)
.................