Re: Heads up: gtar gone from base system

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Conrad J. Sabatier" <conrads_at_cox.net>
To: "Bakul Shah" <bakul_at_BitBlocks.com>
Cc: "Tim Kientzle" <kientzle_at_freebsd.org>; <current_at_freebsd.org>
Sent: Monday, April 04, 2005 1:21 AM
Subject: Re: Heads up: gtar gone from base system


> On Sat, 26 Mar 2005 08:36:02 -0800, Bakul Shah <bakul_at_BitBlocks.com>
> wrote:
>
>> What is the status of this bug?
>>
>>     http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=76294
>>
>> [summary: certain gzipped tar files can't be untarred
>> correctly with -z flag but work fine if with gzcat|tar xvf -]
>>
>> Seems to me this bug needs to be fixed in bsdtar before gtar
>> is removed (note: gtar does not have this problem).  In
>> particular if zlib is buggy, either it needs to be upgraded
>> or bsdtar needs to run compressed files through gzip.
>>
>> Thanks!
>>
>> -- bakul
>
> In a similar vein, I just discovered that KDE's "ark" can no longer
> properly extract gzipped tar files:
>
> tar: unrecognized option `--use-compress-program=gunzip'
>
> Any chance of adding this option to bsdtar?

I think the most technically correct fix there is to update the ark port.

It is a generically useful option though, being able to specify an arbitrary 
compress program, so I wouldn't mind seeing an option like this although it 
doesn't matter to me if it's exactly "--use-compress-program"

If there is software that is so tightly tied to gtar that all the options 
and behaviour need to be duplicated exactly, then the correct answer is to 
install the gtar port to satisfy them. If they use "tar" and expect it to be 
gnu tar to the point of breaking otherwise, then it's stupidity in that 
software that should be fixed, not freebsd's obligation to make sure it's 
tar is a drop-in replacement for gtar on top of being itself.
Of course software will continue to be stupid and assume that the universe 
is Linux, but that is exactly what the ports system is for and that is where 
such adjustments should be made.

Brian K. White  --  brian_at_aljex.com  --  http://www.aljex.com/bkw/
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