In message <20021213011354.GV8398@mewburn.net>, Luke Mewburn wrote: 

-> On Fri, Dec 13, 2002 at 12:14:52AM +0000, Robert Swindells wrote:
->   | 
->   | Luke Mewburn wrote:
->   | >On Thu, Dec 12, 2002 at 08:18:01PM +0000, Robert Swindells wrote:
->   | >  | 
->   | >  | Is there a description anywhere of what was required to get around 
-> the
->   | >  | build problems reported back in October when tar was changed to be 
-> a
->   | >  | link to pax ?
->   | >  | 
->   | >  | I have got current sources and have rebuilt and installed pax/tar
->   | >  | from them, but am still getting the error caused by the empty archi
-> ve.
->   | 
->   | >It's a bit hard to debug your problem without more details...
->   | 
->   | What more do you want ?
->   | 
->   | I get exactly the same error message as described in the threads started
->   | by Rafal Boni and Sean Davis back in October.
->   | 
->   | http://mail-index.netbsd.org/tech-toolchain/2002/10/22/0000.html
->   | 
->   | and
->   | 
->   | http://mail-index.netbsd.org/tech-toolchain/2002/10/30/0000.html
-> 
-> Not being a mind-reader, this extra information would have been useful
-> as part of your first post ...
-> 
-> As far as I can tell, Rafal posted a followup saying that his problem
-> had been solved by updating his /usr/bin/tar ...

One thing I may or may not have mentioned is that tar moved from /usr/bin
to /bin in the process, so it is also worth checking that (a) you're using
the right tar, and (b) if not, nuke the obsolete tar in /usr/bin.

See also http://mail-index.netbsd.org/tech-toolchain/2002/10/30/0005.html

--rafal

----
Rafal Boni                                                     rafal@attbi.com
  We are all worms.  But I do believe I am a glowworm.  -- Winston Churchill