Message-Id: <199704050209.VAA04804@keeper.albany.net>
Comments: Authenticated sender is <jamesl AT mail DOT albany DOT net>
From: "James Lefavour" <jamesl AT mail DOT albany DOT net>
To: mharris AT blackwidow DOT saultc DOT on DOT ca, opendos AT delorie DOT com
Date: Fri, 4 Apr 1997 21:06:04 -0500
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Subject: Re: Interactive shells Re: 32bit BIOS
Reply-to: jamesl AT albany DOT net
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In-reply-to: <Pine.LNX.3.95.970404185837.1353Q-100000@capslock.com>

> On Fri, 4 Apr 1997, Jonathan E. Brickman wrote:
> 
> > > I have yet to see any major software, commercial or otherwise, or
> > > even any shareware software, freeware or public domain software
> > > released using TGZ in DOS.
> > 
> > There is a standard GNU edition of both gzip and tar for DOS.
> 
> Being a Linux user - I have both installed in DOS (and most other
> GNU stuff for DOS).  However, most other people DON'T have TGZ
> allready, and it would be one more program to
> download/install/learn how to use, when there is allready an
> excepted standard for DOS - ZIP.  Although it doesn't come WITH
> DOS, you'd be hard pressed to find a computer without it.
> 
> 
> > > I'm sure that somewhere out there is
> > > an example program that exists for the sole purpose of proving me
> > > wrong, however it fails miserably at doing so because this is the
> > > real world and we know that NO-ONE distributes programs for DOS
> > > using TGZ.  No sane person anyway.  Besides when is the last time
> > > you saw a DOS filename with two dots ('.') in the filename?  :o)
> > 
> > Agreed.  .tgz / .tar.gz is not really a very processor-efficient
> > format.
> 
> Well, I'm glad that you agreed with me, the latter statement is
> not in tune with what I was trying to say.  TGZ *IS* a good
> archive format.  When I compare ZIP to TGZ in Linux, I find that
> TGZ comes out smaller all of the time.  I don't know about the
> speed, but the archives are usually smaller.  Nonetheless, TGZ
> belongs in UNIX, and ZIP in DOS.  I like it that way too because
> when I find a program on the net, I know whether or not it is for
> DOS or Linux usually.  

Also consider that while zip is probably the closest thing to a DOS 
standard compression tool, we also have the completely free Infozip 
distribution available for use.  So this doesn't confuse long term 
users, source and utils are available, and it doesn't add a dime in 
cost to the package. The only thing TGZ doesn't supply out of this 
list is familiarity by long time DOS users who _don't_ have linux and 
unix experience.  Not all dos users are *nix users ;-)

Jim
jamesl AT albany DOT net - http://www.albany.net/~jamesl/