Though I've used tar to extract files for software I've downloaded in the past, this is my first effort at creating a tar file and extracting it. I'm using openSuSE 11.1/KDE 4.1 on one machine (the source, as described below), and Kubuntu 9.04 on the other.

I have a directory on the source computer (/datalib) which I want to copy to the second machine. I made a tarball of the directory using
That appears to have completed successfully -- at least, I have a file named datalib.tar that is ~30GB, and I can see the names of the directories and files within the tarball.

Then I copied the .tar file to the other machine (named Kodiak) using
That process took about 40 minutes, and at the end of that time, I could see .tar file on the other machine.

Then I moved to the other machine to extract the files, and that's where I ran into trouble. I used
and the entire contents of the .tar file scrolled down the screen, but each listing was followed by
The .tar file on the Kodiak machine is the same size as the original, and I am able to list the files using
I am at a loss to know why I'm told there's no such file or directory.

I wrote the tarball in the /datalib directory on the original machine, and I copied it to the /datalib directory on the Kodiak machine. I do not find anything in the --help or man pages that appears to point in a direction helpful to me.

Do you have write permission in the directory where you are trying to extract the tarball?

Duhhh...! That was it. I was so accustomed to using the /datalib directory on my primary machine that I simply overlooked the fact that I'd created the directory on the new machine as root, while doing other set-up chores.

Sure enough -- once I changed the ownership of the directory, the tarball extracted as expected.

Thanks!