[Post-Install] ls -l adding spurious white space

[jlittle]

This is an odd one. ls -l is misbehaving, adding spaces between the ACL indicator (the "+") and the link number, proportional to the number of files displayed. For example:

$ ls -ld b*
drwxrwxr-x+      1 john john     0 Nov 19  2024 bdir
drwxrwxr-x+      1 john john  3066 Apr 27 09:11 bin
drwxrwxr-x+      1 john john   108 Feb 16 10:10 bion
-rw-rw-r--+      1 john john  5336 Feb 12 12:55 borders.txt
drwxrwxr-x+      1 john john   206 May 16  2024 btrview
drwxrwxr-x+      1 john john   914 Apr 28 07:35 build
drwxrwxr-x+      1 john john   550 Oct 28  2024 bus
$ ls -ld [a-d]*
drwxrwxr-x+                 1 john john   570 Jan 10 17:04 adventure
drwxrwxr-x+                 1 john john   114 Nov 20  2022 apod.d
drwxrwxr-x+                 1 john john     0 Nov 19  2024 bdir
drwxrwxr-x+                 1 john john  3066 Apr 27 09:11 bin
drwxrwxr-x+                 1 john john   108 Feb 16 10:10 bion
-rw-rw-r--+                 1 john john  5336 Feb 12 12:55 borders.txt
drwxrwxr-x+                 1 john john   206 May 16  2024 btrview
drwxrwxr-x+                 1 john john   914 Apr 28 07:35 build
drwxrwxr-x+                 1 john john   550 Oct 28  2024 bus
drwxrwxr-x+                 1 john john   394 May 11 22:38 canberra
drwxr-x---+                 1 john john    54 Oct 13  2025 catherine
drwxrwxr-x+                 1 john john     0 Oct 21  2025 clare
-rw-rw-r--+                 1 john john 33872 Mar 29 17:49 d.png
-rw-rw-r--+                 1 john john   110 Dec 31 16:46 d.txt
drwxrwxr-x+                 1 john john   490 Jul 26  2024 dc
drwxrwxr-x+                 1 john john   268 Jan 1  10:26 desktop
drwxr-xr-x+                 1 john john  3278 May 5  08:08 documents
drwxr-xr-x+                 1 john john  4432 May 17 13:37 downloads

If there are 100 files, there are 100 spaces, making the display a mess. It only happens if the listed directory is the current directory; cd;ls -l shows 70 files with 70 spaces, but ls -l ~ is normal. cd /usr/bin;ls -l has 4478 files and each line has 4478 spaces, about 20 MB of output.

I've undefined any aliases. The same with bash or zsh or dash. dir -l has the same behaviour. konsole or xterm the same. Reducing the environment to a minimum has no effect. Logging on as another, uncustomized user still has the problem.

[Schwarzer Kater]

Sorry, have no time at all to reproduce this now (perhaps later)…
But did you try an alternative like using eza instead of ls as a quick temporary workaround?

[claydoh]

Is ls from gnu-coreutils, or rust-coreutils (or is it uutils-coreutils?)?

In any case, iirc you should have both versions, with the gnu one at /bin/gnuls

Worth a bug report, which I did not see with a quick check.

[Snowhog]

This is not happening on my recently upgraded to 26.04. ls -l behaves correctly.

dpkg -S $(which ls) reports:

coreutils-from-uutils: /usr/bin/ls

[oshunluvr]

Not happening here either. Try a different user account?