[tex-live] TeXLive 2008 installation over the Internet breaks for Solaris10 x86

[George N. White III]

On Thu, Oct 9, 2008 at 7:18 PM, Nelson H. F. Beebe <beebe at math.utah.edu> wrote:

> Norbert Preining <preining at logic.at> asks
>
>>> Can we assume that if we are installing on solaris that
>>>         gtar
>>> is available?
>
> No, you cannot make that assumption.  Sun provides gtar in
> /usr/sfw/bin/gtar, but only in Solaris 10.  Earlier releases of
> Solaris do not have it, and even /usr/sfw may be an optional package
> at some sites.  Sun also has an optional /opt/sfw tree, but that does
> not have gtar.
>
> If you need features of GNU tar, it must be made available separately
> in the installation process.  But why not stick with historical tar
> instead, so as to preserve maximal portability.

Ease of maintenance -- nobody has access to all the systems, so it
would be nice to keep the diversity down so you don't have to seek
out a specific platform to test/debug.  While the source scripts may
describe the way Solaris tar is expected to behave, that may not be
a lot of use next year when there is a problem on Solaris 11 and there
aren't any nearby.   In general, it is better to expect some degree of
uniformity on systems that run tex if it keeps the installer simpler.

The pax archiver seems to be widely available and, being newer,
may not suffer from the diversity of vendors' tar implementations.   Rather
than trying to support legacy tar versions, it makes more sense to
support pax.

-- 
George N. White III <aa056 at chebucto.ns.ca>
Head of St. Margarets Bay, Nova Scotia