mark@jhereg.Minnetech.MN.ORG (Mark H. Colburn) (10/01/89)
There seems to have been a bit of discussion about Pax in this newsgroup.
I just finished reading the articles after being pointed to them by someone
here in Minnesota.
Admittedly, Pax, as of version 1.2, had some bugs which needed to be fixed.
I have fixed numerous bugs in version 2.0 and have been actively seeking
beta testers so that I can determine how stable it is. I would be
interested in getting some Minix users to beta test the software to see how
it works on that particular platform.
As far as the comment by Andy about using a sequential backup medium for a
random access device, I can give several good reasons:
1. When doing backups, random access often does very little good. You
usually want to copy everything off of your machine onto the backup
medium. If you only want to copy items which are newer than a particular
date, you can use something like:
find . -newer .backup -print | cpio -ocv >/dev/floppy; touch .newer
where .newer is a file which gets touch each time you make a backup.
If you are doing a sequential backup, seeking around on the disk just
wastes time. Why not treat it like a sequential device?
2. Pax is a POSIX compliant utility. The interface has been standardized
by national and international bodies. The archive format is known, so
other people can read your archives, and vice versa. Using other
backup programs may not give you that level of interoperability.
3. Pax unerstands and automatically copes with both tar and cpio archive
formats, allowing you to use a single program with a single interface
to handle all of your backup and archive extractions.
4. Pax is cheap.
If there are site out there willing to be beta-testers, please let me know
by sending a message to mark@jhereg.minnetech.mn.org stating what
configuration of machine or machines you would be willing to test pax on.
Thanks.
--
Mark H. Colburn mark@Minnetech.MN.ORG
Open Systems Architects, Inc.