> I doubt if they are as well maintained in linux distros as the GNU > tool set, particularly in terms of having recent fixes backported into > the versions carried in enterprise distros. They are updated pretty much every month. >> My basic requirement with what I'm doing is to use standard tools and >> formats so that archives I write today can be readable in 10 years. > > I've never had any doubts that current GNU tar would extract archives > made with it 10+ years ago - in fact I'm fairly sure I've done that. > Or that I'd be able to obtain a copy of it in the future. GNU tar .. has its own bugs. Is it really standards compliant? >> Is the use of Schily tools going to be contrary to my basic requirement? >> Is that considered a risk for future readability? > > It shouldn't matter if you don't use either of the version's > extensions, and for archiving you probably don't need them. For > example, star and GNUtar use very different concepts for incremental > backups - star is sort of like dump and must work on filesystem > boundaries where GNUtar's --listed incremental needs a file to hold > state but will work on arbitrary directories and can span mount > points. same sort of deal with star .. but you should go ask the author. dc -- -- http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?op=vindex&search=0x1D936C72FA35B44B +-------------------------+-----------------------------------+ | Dennis Clarke | Solaris and Linux and Open Source | | dclarke at blastwave.org | Respect for open standards. | +-------------------------+-----------------------------------+