> But I'm not sure how to use that "tar" command.
> I read the man page and am still a bit confused.

GNU tar almost seems like bloatware compared to most other tar programs I've
used. However the "classic" command formats are still supported:

tar cvf files.tar file1 dir2 file3 ...		# make a tar file
tar tvf files.tar				# list the contents of it
tar xvf files.tar				# extract the contents into ./

The presence of the 'v' causes tar to print info about what's doing,
otherwise it is pretty quiet.

>   Could some one please send me the command line that they
> would use to say back up theie /etc directory?

cd / ; tar cf /path/etc.tar etc

Note that you can add a 'z' letter if you want tar to automatically run the
tar file through gzip/gunzip for compression. Most other tars I've used don't
do that.

Todd Whitesel
toddpw @ best.com