Re: deb + tar + bzip2 suggestion
In article <[🔎] q9ogxzmbiu.fsf@fphp16.tphys.physik.uni-tuebingen.de> you wrote:
I'm the tar maintainer for Debian, among other things.
: -z filter through gzip, bzip, bzip2 as appropriate
: That would be a nice thing.
But really hard to get right for compression. :-) For decompression, it is
conceivable that you could pick the right executable based on magic number or
something, but I'm pretty sure the upstream tar maintainer wouldn't go for it.
I'm satisfied with the current situation where both gzip and bzip2 are
supported by their own command-line options. Heck, you can even call
'compress' if you have it with the Z option...
: If tar would behave like that, one could
: make gzip or bzip2 deb files depending on once likeing.
Not without changing the definition of and standards associated with .deb
files. That's far more significant than just changing tar's behaviour.
The bzip2 tool is vastly less well deployed than gzip, so you'd be making
it much harder for folks not running Debian boxes to play. You would also have
to add bzip2 to the base/essential list in Debian, and it's not clear to me
that having two compression engines in base is a good use of floppy space.
Put me on record as not being thrilled about this proposal.
Bdale
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