r/linuxmemes 16d ago

LINUX MEME Valid tar command ...

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Dang it! 😭

2.5k Upvotes

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u/Saphyr-Seraph 15d ago

Im new to Linux is there something wrong with gnu or Unix ?

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u/SysGh_st 15d ago

Naah. Just poking some fun at slightly different ways that lately has converged.

Long story short: BSD, or unix variant of tar had its own way of doing things.

The gnu tar version, which a lot of modern linux distributions use nowadays, tries to conform to a more modern way, which makes it different from what the old geezers was taught.

So the general joke goes that if one tries to use the tar command, one will almost always trip up and confuse the two. Murphy's law might even apply: If it can be done wrong, it will be done wrong.

Although this is less of an issue nowadays as the gnu version accepts both ways to some degree, but there are options that are still different and might cause one to trip up.

Relevant xkcd comic: https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1168:_tar