Mail Archives: opendos/2001/01/29/19:53:27
I have a much better idea! Why doesn't everyone just use .tgz files!?
That is use TAR through GZIP. You can use TAR and GZIP on every
operating system I have used. it with Unix, Linux, DOS, WINDOZE (3.x,)
OS/2.
You can also use TAR and GZIP backups to tape drives, zip drives, hard
drives, LS-120, MO drives, or just about any other type of drive. It
will work with SCSI, QIC-20/30/60/120/150/250/525/etc. It will even work
with QIC-80.
This way there would be a universal standard using FREE GNU/GPL
software. GZIP compression is better than PKZIP and probably equal to or
better than RAR. I would have to compress some large files and see if
GZIP is as good as the latest RAR. RAR may get better results from
multimedia files, but I get very little compression with those using RAR
anyway.
I seem to remember that you can also unzip .ZIP files with GZIP. I
believe that is what I did with .ZIP files under Linux. However, PKZIP
cannot unzip GZIP files (at least the DOS version cannot.)The people
making packages and such for Linux got mad at RAR authors and have
pretty much given up on RAR. I can UNRAR files in Linux though.
I think if people would use TAR and GZIP for DOS files and maybe other
files (most WINDOZE users are so dumb they
cannot do anything but point and click! Give them a program with some
real capabilities and the would be immediately lost!) All that would be
needed is to start using it for DOS files and who knows maybe someone
will write a frontend for it for WINDOZE and maybe even one for DOS so
you don't have to remember all those modifiers. (especially for tape
drives.)
Linux has several frontends for tape backups using TAR and GZIP and they
are free. Even some commercial stuff can be restored using just TAR and
not their whole program. (Great for an emergency restore!)
I don't like TAR for DOS with my tape drive because it seems to read a
file write the file to tape then rewind to the beginning of the file for
some reason even without using the verify switch. This really wears the
heads and tape and takes forever to backup. However, it is great for
restoring. So I use DOS Linux (now called Loop Linux) when I don't have
a full blown Linux installed to backup stuff with Long FileNames off of
FAT 32 and NTFS drives as well as FAT 16. I could also do this with OS/2
HPFS. It just seems to me that TAR and GZIP are so universal and
available for all OSes that it is the logical compression method to use
for almost everything. Someplace on my backups I have it for OS/2. There
is probably one for NT and 9x, I just haven't looked for it. I also need
a driver for NTFS that will work with DRDOS. I should get TAR and GZIP
for WINDOZE 9x and NT and see how it works under these OSes. It works
fine under OS/2, in fact I used it until I got OS/2 Backup Wiz for my
tape drive and Backup Wiz was the only one I found other than Tar that
would work with both my SCSI-II tape drive and my ancient QIC-60 tape
drive. Systos Plus for DOS and OS/2 would not work with the SCSI drive.
I contacted the people that now own the software and they could not help
me with this problem. So I use Central Point Backup for my SCSI drive in
DOS and no longer have the QIC-60 in the system.
Using TAR and GZIP as a universal standard, you could even send cheap
tapes through the mail, ZIP disks, LS-120, or even floppies through the
mail (TAR will span floppies and tapes, etc.) to send huge programs and
files in a compressed format and it would not matter what OS the
receiver uses. For example, you could send old oboslete or abandonware
this way. This would be especially useful for SCSI tapes as they are not
formatted like QIC-80 is. Same is true for the QIC tapes like QIC-60
etc. They would use the 512 byte blocks that TAR uses. You can even
change that in TAR and the receiver could restore the files.
Although TAR is rather ancient, it is very reliable. The only real
problem is that when you use TAR and GZIP without a script or some kind
of frontend program, it make one continous long file for everything that
is backuped to a file or drive. This is same as what RAR does when you
make a SOLID archive. Of you have a bad area in the meadia, you could
lose everything after that bad spot. The way around this is to use a
frontend script like kbackup in Linux which automatically backs up 3 or
4 files at a time into sections.With kbackup being used in Linux would
not make any difference to the receiver because they can use TAR (with
GZIP in the path) and restore the files from a tape or other media.
This brings up another thing. Everyone that uses DOS, should install
Loop linux on their systems. It can be installed on top of a DOS FAT 16
partition or even a FAT 32 partition. I do not recall offhand if it can
be done with NTFS, but believe it can. With Loop Linux you could backup
your files off any type of partition you have because Linux will
recognize just about every current and some obsolete file system. All
you need to do is download the appropriate modules for those file
systems you wish to use if they are not compiled into the kernel. (Most
are not compiled into the Linuc kernel any more because using modules
makes the kernel much smaller <for booting from floppy> and the modules
are automatically loaded on demand. You do not have to load them
manually for most things. There are a few exceptions but not with file
systems. This way people do not have to worry about using valuable
memory for drivers and TSRs for FAT 32 capability, or Long FileNames, or
NTFS or other file systems. You could even store the files with their
LFNs into a file with an 8.3 format filename and manipulate the TAR'd
files with DOS. You can transfer files from one file system to another.
However, DO NOT ever MOVE files from one file system to another. Just
copy them then delete them. I usually copy them, then when I boot the
other OS, I delete them in the native OS. I don't do this with DOS, I
delete them in Linux, but all other file systems I do as I stated above.
The reason I can delete files on a DOS FAT 16 partition is because I use
umsdos in Linux. It is pronanly safe to do this in FAT 32, but I would
do a lot of testing first before I would rely on it. WINDOZE is screwed
up enough as it is!
BTW one or both RAR and PKZIP WINDOZE versions will decompress .tgz
files. I don't recall which will do this. There is also a program for
DOS call UNTGZ. This is very easy and simple to use for files. (not
tapes and other media.)
Pat
----- Original Message -----
From: "Alain" <alainm AT pobox DOT com>
To: <opendos AT delorie DOT com>
Sent: Monday, January 29, 2001 11:18 AM
Subject: Re: Greed (was DPMS info)
> >I guess people have been bundling it with freeware and shareware
> >illegally for years then, even back to the days of PKXARC and PKPAK.
>
> It looks like it...
>
> >However there are numerous freeware programs that can UNZIP, UNRAR,
> >UNARC, etc.
>
> Dont count too much on UNRAR, I got in touch with them and the
> latest version is Windows only (it produces an error about some dll if
> run in plain MSDOS 7.10) and earlyer versions don't support LFN
>
> But Info-Zip (ZIP+UNZIP) is great :)
>
> Alain
>
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