Unix without tar?

[Engineering]

In article <2413 at auspex.auspex.com> guy at auspex.auspex.com (Guy Harris) writes:
>
> >That's not entirely correct.  I've seen some 3b2 machines without tar.
> >We still ship product for the 3b2 in cpio format because of this.
> >(Note: 3b2 is an AT&T box).
>
>Yes, but "tar" *is* in the AT&T S5 source releases; some turkey probably
>decided to leave it out of the binary release in question for the 3B2. 

I thought I'd share a little amusing (?) story with you (since I wrote
the original quote above).

Not long after I posted that message we got a call from one of our 3B2
customers.  We forgot to include the special 3B2 instructions with our
product (which tell the customer to use cpio).  So the customer followed
the default instructions in our manual telling him to use tar.  Well,
naturally tar did not work on a cpio disk (however, tar *was* present
on his 3B2).  To make a long story short, at one point he called AT&T
(or whoever is responsible for the 3B2) and asked them if something was
wrong with tar.  The answer he got says that the 3B2 tar is not
necessarily compatible with the industry standard tar and that they don't
support it.  Of course, I heard this second hand so I can't say for sure
what was said, but it reaffirms my fear that tar is not safe on a 3B2.

heard 
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Scott Amspoker
Basis International, Albuquerque, NM
505-345-5232