>> > I'm not aware that there's a faster way of sending the files once
>> > you've unpacked the archive locally. After all, you've thrown away the
>> > benefits of compression and aggregation.
>> rsync?
> Sure, if you're updating a tree. But AIUI the OP is transferring
> a kernel source archive from scratch.
That's just a special case of "updating". I do it "all the time".
Stefan