tar archive gives different results
 

I'm trying to run installpkg on a .tgz file. My problem is installpkg says it cannot install it, the archive is corrupted. To debug the archive, I ran tar tzvf on the archive and tar returned a msg after listing the 4th or 5th file complaining about the magic number (can't remember exact msg). Installpkg has successfully installed other .tgz files from the same CD so it seems installpkg is working. I mounted the CD on a Mepis 6.0 computer and ran the same tar command on the same .tgz file. All the files in the archive listed fine!

Any idea what is going on? Is the tar archive corrupted or not?

Thanks...Randy

Perhaps the CD is scratched or dirty and the first computer running Slack cannot read it. Try to clean it out to see if it helps.

If you have a cd-rw (or cd-r you're willing to waste), you could clone-copy the original disk (check that the copying went all right) and re-try with the new cd.

already tried multiple sources
 

Thanks for your feedback!

I have tried 2 different dvds, 1 cd-r, and a usb stick. It can't be a bad package, because I download it to my Mepis machine and look at the archive there - it appears fine. I have burned it to a dvd with growisofs, burned it to a cd with cdrecord, and copied it to a usb stick with cp. When I try the package on the Slackware install system, tar fails complaining about either a magic number or crc failure. I don't know what to do next. I'm beginning to think there is something about the hardware that is preventing tar from working - maybe???

Maybe its due to the older version of tar. I know one of them had an issue where the view function would not work properly. I would check the versions that are on slack and that are on your mephis install and see if they are the same. If not I would update the slackware one so that it is current.

that are unzip the archive and attempt to untar it.

I'd be inclined to look at some good tarred pkg files with a hex editor and then do the same with the one you're having trouble with, just to get some confidence that it is at least vaguely what it claims to be.

exvor - thanks for the ideas. On the slackware install system, it may use a busybox tar because when I issued tar -h and tar --version I didn't get the same results as I did with the GNU tar on the Mepis system. I actually downloaded a current tar package and tried to install it on the installation system and guess what - tar had problems with the tar package!!! I'm going to try unzipping and untaring a package and putting it back together to see what happens.

tischbein - thanks for your feedback. I'm going to try the hex editor and see if there is anything obvious or different about the packages that failed.

I don't think that tar understands .tgz files as they are used with the installpkg program.

Maybe this is the root of the issue