[mdlug] Archive formats (was "Linux Format" March issue available for download)

[Jeff Hanson]

On Wed, Mar 4, 2009 at 7:43 PM, Aaron Kulkis <akulkis00 at gmail.com> wrote:
> As I recall, RAR has the advantage of being easily divided
> into smaller files
>
> .rar => .rar00, .rar01, .rar02...

Can be done with most current archive formats including zip.

> without the Unix command "split", which, for some strange reason,
> has STILL not been discovered and migrated by the Windows world.
> (nor it's complement, "cat" which can be used to re-concatenate
> file chunks back into the original file)

There's a bunch of third-party ones but nothing that's standard with the OS.

> RAR was extremely important when system memory sizes started
> climbing, but the largest removable media was still the old
> 3.5" floppy.

In the warez scene, file splitting is still used with online storage
accounts that have maximum file size limits.  It also used to be a way
to reduce reattempt costs if corruption occurred during transfer,
sometimes supplemented with Parchive:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parchive

Not as much an issue with a more stable Internet and protocols that
correct on the fly like BitTorrent.