Re: Perfomance problem backupscript (more details and tests)

Les Mikesell <[email protected]> wrote:

> On Mon, 2005-10-10 at 06:14, Joerg Schilling wrote:
>
> > > The point of that test was to show that GNU tar does handle
> > > renamed directories correctly with --listed-incremental.
> > 
> > It definitely does _not_.
> > 
> > Try to get the most recent release (1.15.1) compile it by your own
> > and follow the instructions I did send out last week.
>
> My test script works the same and duplicates the contents of the
> renamed directory with 1.15.1.  I can't use your instructions because

Did you repeat the test with a _real_  1.15.1?

> > > > I did always check the latest versionof GNU tar.
> > >
> > > The latest from the developers is often not what you
> > > really want to run.  How about one as currently included
> > > in a well-tested distribution?
> > 
> > So why do _you_ run GNU tar versions made from internal unpublished
> > developer files?
>
> I don't.  I run versions that are published along with the already
> well-known fixes of bugs found in wide use.  For example, the copy at 
> http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/core/updates/4/SRPMS/
> tar-1.15.1-10.FC4.src.rpm
> contains 7 patches, including one for the bug you wasted your time
> describing about sparse file totals.

If the version you use has some of the named bugs fixed, then the followoing
applies to you:

-	You are using a badly maitained distro as it seems that the maintainer
	do not care about star the same way as they do for GNU tar.

-	You don't use a GNU tar-1.15.1 but an internal developer version
	that does not have been published as an official version that
	compiles on all platforms. Note that you cannot e.g. compile the
	CVS content from the GNU tar maintainers on Solaris as the creation
	of a useful GNU tar source archive depends on non-standard programs.


> > Please be fair and compare the latest GNU tar version with the latest
> > star version.
>
> A fair comparison requires an equally widely tested version of star.

I am sorry, but I will not reduce the quality of star in order to meet your 
wishes.....

Note that I did send dozens of show stopper bug reports on GNU tar since
1993 and all these bug reports have the following in common:

-	They all have been found by just thinking on possible problems 
	that might happen when implementing a specific feature and running 
	a simple 5 minute test. In general, I _always_ found a bug when I was
	looking for possible problems.

	So GNU tar seems to be mainly untested :-(

-	It usually takes 10 years for the GNU tar maintainers to fix them.


Again: if you like to make fair comparisons, compare the latest version
of star (ftp://ftp.berlios.de/pub/star/alpha/) with the latest and _unmodified_
version of GNU tar (ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/tar or ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/tar).

Jörg

-- 
 EMail:[email protected] (home) Jörg Schilling D-13353 Berlin
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       [email protected]	(work) Blog: http://schily.blogspot.com/
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