Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!unmvax!bbx!bbxeng!scott From: scott@bbxeng.UUCP (Engineering) Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions Subject: Re: Unix without tar? Message-ID: <216@bbxeng.UUCP> Date: 31 Aug 89 16:18:54 GMT References: <10889@smoke.BRL.MIL> Reply-To: scott@bbxeng.UUCP (Scott-Engineering) Organization: Basis International, Albuquerque, NM Lines: 22 In article <10889@smoke.BRL.MIL> gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn) writes: >In article jes@mbio.med.upenn.edu (Joe Smith) writes: >>Recently, someone asserted that tar archives aren't a suitable >>distribution format because they aren't understood by every Unix. > >"tar" archives may not be suitable, but it's not because "tar" is >unavailable. Every AT&T UNIX release since 7th Edition (around 1978) >has included some version of "tar"; it's "cpio" that may not exist >everywhere (particularly 4.2BSD-based systems). That's not entirely correct. I've seen some 3b2 machines without tar. We still ship product for the 3b2 in cpio format because of this. (Note: 3b2 is an AT&T box). -- --------------------------------------- Scott Amspoker Basis International, Albuquerque, NM 505-345-5232