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From: mjranum@osiris.UUCP (Marcus Ranum)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: minix - is this a sensible thought ?
Message-ID: <962@osiris.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 1-Feb-87 13:04:25 EST
Article-I.D.: osiris.962
Posted: Sun Feb  1 13:04:25 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 1-Feb-87 23:05:44 EST
Organization: Johns Hopkins Hospital
Lines: 38
Keywords: file transfer formats, etc, etc.


	Finally got Dr. T.'S book from the bookstore, and software
is on the way. The first thing that struck me about MINIX is that 
it does represent a wonderful opportunity for those of us systems
hacks who can't afford a Sun workstation as a home computer. (I am
regrettably in that position.)  I already have plans for various
tweeks, ports, and programs to write when I get the chance and have
my hard disk up and running.
	To get to the point: I am an avid reader of comp.sources and
other software related netgroups. One of the things that has on a few
occasions had me frothing at the mouth is the incredible variety of
different formats in which binaries and sources are posted. What I
would like to suggest, since we are starting out afresh here, is that
we establish a MINIX source/binary posting standard. I have often been
bewildered when I get a program I really wanted, and it's in uusquoze
arck'ed format, or some such. 
	What I suggest is the following: initially (from what I gather 
from the book) we don't have an equivalent of uuencode or cpio(1).
We do, however, have tar(1) and shar. What if we all agree that 
postings of MINIX material be in of tar format. This would entail,
I realize, making net postings of uuencoded tar archives, uudecoding
them, downloading them, and then dosread(MINIX)ing them before finally
untar(1)ing them. This is a pain in the tuchus for sure, but I feel
it beats the alternative of sending everything in shar format, which
takes more bytes than is needed. The slowest part (I anticipate) is
the downloading part to the Mush-Dos floppy...
	Certainly there might be better ways of doing this, and I
encourage someone to develop them. I do feel some discussion of this
is (very) relevant, since we have a potentially lively newsgroup
here, and I feel that other groups (particularly comp.sys.ibm.pc)
could use some form of 'of the cuff' standard...

--mjr;
-- 
{decuac}!gouldsd!mjranum || {decuac}!osiris!mjranum

"It is better to shred the bugger than to bugger the shredder."
					-ancient doltic proverb.