Yep... I use tar every day... and dump.  I even use tar without the -f
switch option to actually put things on TAPE... wow.  70's technology!
Whoo hoo!  (GRIN)

I have fallen into the habit of calling files that have been tarred and
then gzipped "tarballs".  Don't know why... just Unix slang.

In fact, all RedHat RPM's are is somewhat messed up cpio archive files.
And Debian packages are basically "ar" archives, both having specific
"control" files in them.

--
Nate Duehr, WY0X  (AIM: BigNateCO)
nate@natetech.com

On Wed, 2002-11-27 at 22:20, Jim wrote:
> What the heck is a 'tape archive ball' (tarball) -
>
> - what with "tar" being (QUITE) literally:
>
>   "Tape ARchive" (the sequential storage of a directory's
>   contents into a single 'sequential' file suitable for
>   integral storage, archival and easy transport ...)
>
> in *NIX ...
>
> (I fear we are/we have lost the root meaning of some of
>  these commands. The now old and quite historic TI 990
>  mincomputers running either DX10 and DNOS OSes had a
>  similar -if not the same funcionality- command:
>
>   "BD" for 'backup directory'.
>
>  Essentially the BD command sent an entire directory/
>  set of directories and files (as specified in the command
>  operand) comprising same to a sequential file - and
>  suitable for sending to serial/sequential storage
>  'medium' -like tape- for long-term ARCHIVAL storage ...)
>
> RF Jim

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