[ On Monday, January 20, 2003 at 09:54:29 (+0100), Xavier HUMBERT wrote: ]
> Subject: Re: Removing GNU tar and GNU cpio from src?
>
> The whole point is that legacy tar could be used as a backup tool

No, the point is that you were creating broken backups without knowing it.

The whole point of backups is to be sure they record the system in a
consistent state regardless of whether you actually verify them or not.

If you thought the old GNU Tar was giving you better backups of your
live system than the new pax then you were being fooled and misled.

If you want to do proper backups of files that can change during the
time the backup is done then you have to deal with that in some way
(ignore the backup tool's warnings, stop the program that changes the
file, put the system in single user (or backup) mode, etc.).  If you
don't care about those files then don't include them in your backup.

However please don't complain about a backup tool warning you that your
backups are broken.  You should be happy that it is doing so!

> Well, we have gtar, but there are zillions of backup scripts around that
> rely on (gnu)tar behavior, and break with pax as tar.

So install GNU Tar (pkgsrc/archivers/gtar) if that's what you want!

-- 
								Greg A. Woods

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