[PATCH] Update install document to require GNU tar 1.14

[Ranjit Mathew]

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Joseph S. Myers wrote:
> On Fri, 24 Feb 2006, David Edelsohn wrote:
> 
>> 	While testing GCC 4.1 RC1, I discovered that GNU tar 1.13 corrupts
>> some long filenames and cannot untar the distribution.  This patch updates
>> the documentation to require at least version 1.14 of GNU tar.  I know
>> that 1.15.1 works.
> 
> Given the requirement for tar 1.14, we could start generating POSIX-2001 
> tar archives (tar --format=posix) and so potentially support unpacking by 
> some non-GNU implementations.  (1.14 is the first GNU tar version 
> supporting POSIX tar format.)  I don't think this change would be a good 
> idea for 4.1.0, but we could perhaps make it for the mainline 
> maintainer-scripts.

FWIW, I was recently bitten by distributing POSIX-2001 format tar
archives created by GNU tar 1.15.1 which I had on my home PC
running Linux. The problem is that not everyone has upgraded to
GNU tar 1.14+, so they see "weird" folders like "PaxHeaders.1640"
and errors like "unknown file type `x'" and they complain to you
about distributing "corrupted" archives.

I have seen this problem on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 AS (Update
6) which uses GNU tar 1.13.25 and MinGW MSYS (Windows) which
uses tar 1.13.19.

I'm not advocating that we do not use a newer tar, but that
we document this fact "prominently enough" (in the normal
documentation as well as the release notes) and still be
prepared for problem reports from users who use older tar
programmes.

Thanks,
Ranjit.

- --
Ranjit Mathew      Email: rmathew AT gmail DOT com

Bangalore, INDIA.    Web: http://rmathew.com/


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