Ftp-WG: Compressions and conversions

> > Sun's `jar -xvf` and Microsoft's Win XP
> > choked over these .Z and .gz compressions,
> > but Mac OS X just plain worked. 

> Subject: Ftp-WG: Compressions and conversions
> ... Winzip and several other tools
> handle .Z quite comfortably, ...

I'm thinking Windows doesn't work out of the box with
.Z and .gz, and can't be quickly & freely upgraded to
cope.

Is that wrong?

Last I checked, Winzip was now even less free than it
used to be?

Just now I tried renaming .Z and .gz to .zip, which in
some versions of Windows invokes auto .zip handling
... here Windows says "invalid or corrupt" archive.

Last time I inflated .Z on Windows, I think I
downloaded, in multiple steps involving multiple
megabytes, a version of Cygwin, possibly over the
19.2K line I had in the Grand Tetons.  I hear a thing
termed Mingw is now more in vogue: we wouldn't want
technique learned to be valid for an extended period
of time, would we.

Once upon a time I found my way to a free zip effort,
named something like InfoZip, out of which I heard the
free Sun jar tool grew?  InfoZip didn't work too well
for me then: I commonly encountered .zip's it couldn't
handle.

As far as I know, all the legitimate distributions of
the free Sun jar also involve multiple megabytes and
trusting an installation utility.  Currently on
Windows I use a local copy of a 21 megabyte subset of
a normal Sun JavaDevelopmentKit, with drag & drop
installation.

It's not that I can't defeat the popular compression
schemes.  I just can't do so easily, in a hassle free
way I can share with technically illiterate friends
across the globe.

Pat LaVarre

P.S. I tend to think the browser should cope, anyhow. 
Like I care how the data is compressed.

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