Tim wrote:
Wong Kwok-hon:
How about to compress to RAR ? Which software can ?
Kevin Kofler:
Don't.
1. By using RAR, you help spreading a proprietary format which cannot
be opened with Free Software. (All the decompressors I've seen are
derived from the original non-Free unrar.)
2. You have to use a proprietary program to compress, too.
3. You even have to pay to use said compressor legally.
...[snip]...
I agree, the original poster has already experienced annoyances at
having to do something to unpack yet another archive format, why subject
yet another person to the same thing? The first time I had to deal with
a RAR file on Windows, it was a right pain. It was even worse when I
had to deal with one on Linux, the first time around.
RAR's supposed to have some good features, particularly to do with
sending large files as a split set of archives, but I doubt that it's
going to be significantly better at it than other schemes.
I would love an open source program that does what RAR files do. With
the addition of PAR2 files, the RAR files or compressed files can be
repaired.
I would love a tool that does RAR with PGP built in. Any programmers
out there?
The problem is RAR is used heavily in usenet. RAR is not only a
compression tool but a splitter and a great archiving tool.
FWIW, there is a rpm "par2cmdline" that generates and works with par2
files. This is part of Fedora.
I have unrar from livna.
--
Robin Laing
