tar does not like me

[Craig White]

On Thu, 2002-10-24 at 15:51, George Gambill wrote:
> Went to a web page (www.rdesktop.org) and downloaded a file
> (<http://easynews.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/rdesktop/rdesktop-1.1.0.tar
> .gz>) to a Win 2000 system Dir.
> 
> The Win 2000 "Save as" did not show the ending ".gz" but claimed it to be a
> WinZip file.
> 
> Extracting it (WinZip) to a subdirectory shows many files including
> "makefile"and a sub directory (crypto).
> 
> Coppied the origional .tar (unextracted) to a floppy diskette (DOS type).
> 
> On the RH8 (boots to the GUI - seperate issue) system, issued (Ctri Alt f1)
> to the command line.
> 
> Logged in as root.
> 
> Added an entry in fstab for a DOS type floppy.
> 
> Mounted a DOS type floppy (/mnt/floppydos/).
> 
> ls /mnt/floppydos/   displays  rdeskt~1.gz
> 
> Created (mkdir) a /tmp/rdesktop/ directory.
> 
> Could not figure out the cp command therefore, using the GUI (Ctrl Alt F7)
> (Home Folder) navigated to /mnt/floppydos/ and did a right mouse click -
> copy.  Then navigated to /tmp/rdesktop/ and did a right mouse click - paste.
> 
> >From the command window (Ctrl Alt F1), in /tmp/rdesktop/ ls displays
> "rdeskt~1.gz".
> 
> read the man page on tar
> 
> Tried tar -t rdeskt~1.gz
> Tried tar -t rdesktop-1.1.0.tar.gz
> Tried tar -tg rdeskt~1.gz
> Tried tar -tg rdesktop-1.1.0.tar.gz
> Tried tar -xg rdeskt~1.gz
> Tried tar -xg rdesktop-1.1.0.tar.gz
> Tried tar -xg rdeskt~1.gz
> Tried tar -xg rdesktop-1.1.0.tar.gz
> Tried several more combinations.  
> 
> Tar either locked up or I needed more patience.  Ctrl-c brouthe me back to
> the command line.
> 
> Questions:
> 1) Any ideas?
> 2) How can I see the real name of "rdeskt~1.gz without the "~" getting in
> the way?
> 3) can I tar from the GUI?
> 
----
a lot of good answers from the list and I only want to say one thing.

when you want to download files for linux - use linux.

It's not that you can't use Windows to download files, but doing so
cheats you from learning HOW to use linux and in your case, using winzip
to 'un-gzip' a file was not the right thing to do. Transfer it to linux
in it's downloaded state and work on it from there.

Consider that the compressed binary shells are intact as they are and
they can migrate across platforms/media and still be ok. Once you
unzip/untar/ungzip/unstuff etc. you lose the wrapper on the file.

Craig