Just curious why files.tar.bz2 are so slow to unpak?

Im running RH 8 > kde and just double clicking into the tar and copying out the dir... is this a bad way to uncompress bz2's?

I have tried with the Archive tool and it isnt any faster (I'm talking like 25 mins for a 4 mb file) is this normal?

i don't know why it would take that long, but just try it at the command line and see if the same things happens:
tar -jxvf file.tar.bz2

it can be normal on a slow system (386) but it really should go fast, also if you ide controller is not identified properly it can do it, do an lspci and a dmesg and post oth outputs here and I can check for you

try:
to get an exact time. Then post it here. Also, if you have a couple of machines, try it on each of them to compare.

(i686 1.3gig Duron) ok well it seems 10 times faster through command prompt and everything else in KDE is fine even standard tar files just the .bz2's it has trouble with, weird, still want me to post the info? think the hdd and all is fine just bz2's for some reason SLOW???

Thanx for the help guys

some things like kde run ast becuase they are loaded into memory, .bz2 files are not. just give me the output of hdparm -i /dev/hdX

HDA:

Model=ST340016A, FwRev=3.05, SerialNo=3HS1KL56
Config={ HardSect NotMFM HdSw>15uSec Fixed DTR>10Mbs RotSpdTol>.5% }
RawCHS=16383/16/63, TrkSize=0, SectSize=0, ECCbytes=4
BuffType=unknown, BuffSize=2048kB, MaxMultSect=16, MultSect=16
CurCHS=16383/16/63, CurSects=16514064, LBA=yes, LBAsects=78165360
IORDY=on/off, tPIO={min:240,w/IORDY:120}, tDMA={min:120,rec:120}
PIO modes: pio0 pio1 pio2 pio3 pio4
DMA modes: mdma0 mdma1 mdma2
UDMA modes: udma0 udma1 udma2 udma3 udma4 *udma5
AdvancedPM=no WriteCache=enabled
Drive conforms to: device does not report version: 1 2 3 4 5

HDB is just a 98 drive so i wont post it

well, it is using dma and ata/100 so the hd/controller is not likely the option. what distro/version are you running, and do you have a custom kernel?

Redhat Linux 8.0 Kernel 2.4.18-14 RH 8 standard.

ick.
1) I personally hate redhat
2) redhat 8 was a feature release and probably had a lot of bugs (redhat had .0 as feature, .1 .2 and .3 as fix released until 9.0 mwhe they changed the scheme, try recompiling tar (with the bz2 patch) or d-load a newer rpm
3) stock kernels aren't always the best, you might look into compiling your own kernel (not as daunting as it may seem to be)

Thanx for the help, maybe i'll look into RH 9 or even a differant distro, still, its not presenting too much of a problem, and i do like RH

you might look into slackware (my favorite) or debian (I didn't like it but those that do are excessivly religious about it (like a mac user on crack religious))

lol yer ive delt with those crazy mac users, although MacOs X looks pretty nice with the unix layer, bout time.
Will look into slackware just i cant download iso as i only have dialup, restricted to what i can find on magazines etc

I am also on dialup, for $20 you can buy slack on www.slackware.com, or you can use a d-load manager (gtm) to d-load iso's over a few days.

Where would i find a good non-biased review of slackware? with screenshots pref.???