[ On Monday, October 14, 2002 at 02:37:17 (-0600), Rick Kelly wrote: ]
> Subject: Re: FYI: upgrading GNU tar
>
> Giles Lean said:
> >
> >... and what you wrote is not a portable tar archive, so you'll need
> >GNU tar to recover it, I expect.  Breaking at backup time rather than
> >recovery time could be considered a feature: that way at least you
> >know what you're dealing with while you have the data on-disk and can
> >decide what to do about it.
> 
> So, pax can't really replace GNU tar...

Actualy it mostly can, as can star (in this case star might even be a
better replacement).  The problem isn't quite so bad as you're making it
out to be.

> Think of all the thousands of NetBSD backup tapes that were done with
> GNU tar.
> 
> Think of the hundreds of thousands of systems worldwide that use GNU tar
> as the default version of tar.

Think of how easy it is to type "pkg_add gtar" before you load your
recovery tape and complete the restore.....

-- 
								Greg A. Woods

+1 416 218-0098;            <g.a.woods@ieee.org>;           <woods@robohack.ca>
Planix, Inc. <woods@planix.com>; VE3TCP; Secrets of the Weird <woods@weird.com>