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From: mark@comp.vuw.ac.nz (Mark Davies)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.hp
Subject: Re: HP-UX features
Message-ID: <1991Jun04.060538.6060@comp.vuw.ac.nz>
Date: 4 Jun 91 06:05:38 GMT
References: <1991May24.152621.9993@msuinfo.cl.msu.edu> <1730097@hpcndjdz.CND.HP.COM> <1991Jun3.205949.26868@msuinfo.cl.msu.edu>
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I wrote:
|> Have you actually looked at what update format is?  At least since 7.0 (and
|> from memory earlier on the 800's) it is just a tar file with a standard
|> file structure.

|> I often just go in and tar chunks off without having to get near update.

Jason Zions writes:
|> Very risky; there's more in the tar files than just bits. You need to
|> execute the various customize scripts as well, in the correct order. In any

Rick Peterson writes:
|> We tried a couple times quite a while ago to just read the tar files.  We
|> only discovered later that some problems we were having were due to the
|> fact that there were "various customize scripts" hidden away that didn't
|> get executed.

I would argue that the customize scripts are not hidden away.  They are
fairly easy to find, and certainly if you were installing something this
way you need to look at what they do carefully (but then I would look at
what any install did carefully).

I mentioned using tar directly mainly for the case when you just want to
pull a couple of files off a tape.  Certainly I wouldn't recommend doing
a full system install that way.

cheers
mark