Problem with Archiving .tar

[Mark H. Nichols]

On Oct 31, 2007, at 1:53 PM, Derek Broughton wrote:

> Richard wrote:
>
>> On Wednesday 31 October 2007 12:12:13 am Chris Lemire wrote:
>>> Richard: I'm sorry I can't help, but I _can_ say that on my  
>>> (gutsy) kde
>>> desktop, I can still right click on a folder and get a "Compress"  
>>> context
>>> menu. That menu contains "Compress as FILENAME.tar.gz"; "Compress  
>>> as "
>>> (with a submenu for all the compression types supported by Ark);  
>>> "Add to"
>>> (presumably a most-recently-used list of archives created by this  
>>> tool);
>>> and "Add to archive...". As far as I can see, these work.
>>
>> Sorry, Derek it does not work,
>> Yes, I too, am using kubuntu 7.10,
>> Have been trying to archive, using .tar only, on a 1.7GB folder,  
>> in the
>> home directory, the action is in the contextual menu for archive  
>> (just
>> select) .tar I notice it does work on smaller files size, say  
>> 650MB, but
>> try 8-9 times on the folder in the home directory, and its just  
>> hangs.
>>
> Ah.  Well, I can't say I've _ever_ tried to compress files that  
> large...
>
>> that is why I posted the problem in the first place... I don't  
>> know why a
>> couple of you, don't understand that, and want to flame the  
>> command line
>> as a reply to the problem. instead of trying to figure out what's  
>> causing
>> the problem.
>
> Now that you tell us it only happens with large files, I'd have to  
> suggest
> that you _must_ try it with the command line first.  The gui is just a
> front end, and really shouldn't cause problems in itself, so I'd be  
> willing
> to bet that you'll run into the same problem using tar in the CLI.

Not knowing anything about the internals of tar this may be out in  
left field, but... how much free disk space have you got?  Is it  
possible that in tarring a 1.7 GB folder you need another 1.7 GB of  
free space?  Maybe you could split the operation into two .85 GB tars?

Just my $0.02

mark