zip (was: Re: Disk archival techniques)

[Randy McLaughlin]

From: "Patrick Finnegan" <pat at computer-refuge.org>
Sent: Wednesday, May 18, 2005 10:45 PM


> Randy McLaughlin declared on Wednesday 18 May 2005 10:26 pm:
>> Lately I've been using self-extracting zip files.  The reason is that
>> just by renaming the file from *.exe to *.zip most decompressors
>> handle it just fine and for 99% of the people it includes the software
>> to decompress it.
>
> So, to fan the flames, what's wrong with tar?  There's a lot more
> machines I know of that can easily handle tar files than zip files...
>
> Even WinZip can decompress tar files...  while I still had a running
> Windows machine, I used WinZip to decompress tar files several times.
> Plus, tar is an (intentionally) open format; gnu tar is available for
> lots of different platforms, and it's even easy to write your own tar
> extractor.
>
> Especially for long term archiving, I think that things like simple, open
> formats are more important than making sure that everyone's grandma can
> figure out how to use the archive... ie, assuming that the person has a
> grasp of being able to learn new things, and some idea of logic are IMO
> reasonable assumptions.
>
> Pat
> -- 
> Purdue University ITAP/RCAC       --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/
> The Computer Refuge               --- http://computer-refuge.org


Personally I like TAR.

I use self extracting archives because if you are computer literate the 
instructions printed on the download page should tell you what it takes to 
extract it.

If you are a windoze user with you head up where the sun doesn't shine it 
just works.

It works for the largest base, even for those that are just now ready to 
learn.

I am not advocating winzip as a perfect system, just a system that fits my 
personal desire to spread archives to as many as want to download them.


Randy
www.s100-manuals.com