Ken <tyl### [at] pacbellnet> wrote:
:> : A tar.gz file is a source archive for Linux.
:> 
:>   No, it isn't.

: Mostly true.

  I'm sorry about my minimalist and rude answer :)

  Firstly, a .tar.gz has nothing to do with source archives. It's just
a packing format completely equivalent to .zip, .arj or .rar. It couldn't
care less about what's packed inside it. Unix program sources are usually
distributed in this format, but that's just because it's the most common
packing format in Unix; everything else is usually packed with this format
as well. The format itself has nothing to do with sources or anything.
  (If we are pedantic, a .tar.gz file is actually packed with _two_ programs:
first tar and then gzip, although the gtar program supports both at the same
time.)

  Secondly, .tar.gz has nothing to do with Linux. In the same well as .zip
and .rar are universal formats, so is .tar.gz. It's just a system-independent
packing format.
  The fact that it has become popular in the Unix world does not make it
a Linux format.
  (I smell a say-Linux-when-should-say-Unix phenomenon in the original
article as well, which is rather irritating...)

-- 
#macro N(D,I)#if(I<6)cylinder{M()#local D[I]=div(D[I],104);M().5,2pigment{
rgb M()}}N(D,(D[I]>99?I:I+1))#end#end#macro M()<mod(D[I],13)-6,mod(div(D[I
],13),8)-3,10>#end blob{N(array[6]{11117333955,
7382340,3358,3900569407,970,4254934330},0)}//                     - Warp -

Post a reply to this message