Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!csd4.csd.uwm.edu!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!ames!haven!adm!smoke!gwyn From: gwyn@smoke.BRL.MIL (Doug Gwyn) Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions Subject: Re: Unix without tar? Message-ID: <10904@smoke.BRL.MIL> Date: 1 Sep 89 00:39:00 GMT References: <10889@smoke.BRL.MIL> <216@bbxeng.UUCP> Reply-To: gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn) Organization: Ballistic Research Lab (BRL), APG, MD. Lines: 19 In article <216@bbxeng.UUCP> scott@bbxeng.UUCP (Scott-Engineering) writes: >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. It's always possible for the vendor to remove "tar", or for the system administrator to remove it or fail to install it, etc. It's part of the 3B2 master source distribution from AT&T, however. (Or at least it has been on the distributions we've received; there have been many UNIX releases!) You can pretty much count on "cpio" existing on 3B2s, and also on the machines not being able to read 1/2" magtape! You can pretty much count on "cpio" NOT being available on commercial Berkeley-based systems, although that's gradually changing. When I ship my UNIX System V emulation for 4.nBSD, the first file on the tape is normally an executable "cpio", so the rest of the tape can be read. Of course that requires some sort of UNIX licensing (which I have to verify before shipment).