Bug#233294: installation report - tar: Unrecognised file type

[Sven Luther <sven.luther@wanadoo.fr>]

On Wed, Feb 18, 2004 at 10:46:53AM -0800, Matt Kraai wrote:
> On Wed, Feb 18, 2004 at 09:29:03AM -0500, Barry Hawkins wrote:
> > I experienced this same error last night using the sarge businesscard 
> > daily from 02/16/2004, and the package was perl-base.  The error 
> > behaved exactly the same when I tried the mirror at ftp.us.debian.org 
> > using ftp and again when I tried the mirror at mirror.kernel.org using 
> > http.  It may be mirrors.kernel.org, but you know which one I mean.  My 
> > notes say mirror.kernel.org, but I am not sure they're correct.
> 
> BusyBox tar cannot handle archives built with the latest version
> of tar.  In particular, /usr/lib/debootstrap/devices.tar.gz and
> the following packages installed by debootstrap:
> 
>  debconf
>  debconf-i18n
>  gcc-3.3-base
>  libnewt0.51
>  libstdc++5
>  libgcc1
>  perl-base
>  tar
>  whiptail
>  apt
>  apt-utils
>  base-config
>  aptitude
>  bsdmainutils
>  console-data
>  zlib1g
>  wget
>  lilo
>  iptables

It seems to me that the latest tar fixes this issue : 

 Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2004 16:03:20 -0700
 tar (1.13.92-5) unstable; urgency=low
 .
   * patch from Paul Eggert to revert bogus behavior where POSIXLY_CORRECT
     set in the environment forced 'pax' format archives, closes: #230872

So, the problem would either be to : 

  a) fill RC bug against all those above mentioned packages so they are
  rebuilt with this new tar.

  b) fix busybox tar so they can handle the broken archives. More work,
  but more foolproof in the future.

Unless i miss something, that is.

Friendly,

Sven Luther