> If you haven't used UNPRIVED, use pax to copy:
   > 	cd $DESTDIR
   > 	pax -rwvpe . /
   
   It is quite the same as a DESTDIR=/ build for my setup.

yes, the above is quite broken in that it will overwrite /etc and /var :-)
   
   1) My /home is an amd automount point.  pax tries to frob the
      directory perms for /home, barfs and exits.
   
   2) My /usr/local is a symlink to /u/local and pax blows the symlink
      away and installs an empty directory tree.  (Note: there is nothing
      that will wake you up as quickly as doing an "ls /usr/local/bin/"
      after an "upgrade" and seeing that it is now empty! ;-) Luckily
      only the symlink, not the underlying files got whacked.)

see PR#8090: extracting distribution .tar.gz files with pax nukes my symlinks
   
   I think I'd by happier if the pax copy only copied the files and the
   symlinks and left everything else alone.

the solution is tricky and not clear.



.mrg.