tar for "full" floppy backup?

Hello everyone --

An old Slackware 3.0 manual suggests the following command with tar for a full backup onto 3.5" floppy disks:

tar cvfbk /dev/fd0 1440 4 /

I've read that the "k" option is supposed to cause tar to prompt for adding multiple disks as the archive exceeds the size of each floppy disk, but I receive errors, and the backup stalls.

Does anyone know of a one-line command string for using tar to backup all that's necessary (I realize that *everything* doesn't have to be backed up, such as empty directories, etc.)?

And what would be the correct command using tar to restore this backup?

Can the multiple floppy disk archive be gzipped during the tar archive process -- or would this make it impossible to restore the archive later?

Am I using the wrong utility to attempt floppy disk backups?

I only have about 9 MBs of material (from BasicLinux) to back up and am using a full version of tar from Slackware 3.5, and I'm not working with a network here.

Please excuse my ignorance, and thanks for any suggestions!

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Whoever got that manual should be given a full refund by slackware if it is as you say. The f in that command string has to precede a device name and file path.

Jude <dashielljt(at)gmpexpress-dot-net>

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maybe tar cvbkf /dev ... will work.

Jude <dashielljt(at)gmpexpress-dot-net>

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Howdy, dashielljt:

I was thinking along the same lines. I am only familiar
with the last option being 'f'. Yet I noticed that the 'b' command needs an operator too. Perhaps the operators are appended in the same order they are requested by the options. 'f' filename.ext or /dev/*
'b' block size
'k' ?
i.e.
tar cvfbk /dev/fd0 1440 4 /

      \\\
       \\k = 4
        \b = 1440
         f = /dev/fd0

?
HTH, Chuck

<snip>
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Chuck, you're right on target about how the agruments that get parameters get them. Skipping the problematic "k" part for the moment, a command like

tar cvfb somefilename.tar 40 some_files_to_tar_up

would work just fine, putting whatever matched some_files_to_tar_up in somefilename.tar . Try it for yourself. No need to badmouth an old Slackware manual (or demand a refund from poor old Patrick) for saying to do it this way.

OTOH, old Slackware manuals are ... well, old, and tar has an unfortunate tendency to change its parameter meanings from time to time. I don't have a ready way to check what the k parameter did way back when Slackware 3 was current (October 1995, according to my genuine Slackware CD), but these days it has nothing to do with multi-volume settings. Check the man page to see this.

I don't tar to floppies here, so I've not tried it, but I'd suggest your seeing if the -M (multi-volume) parameter can be used to do what you want.

--
-------------------------------------------"Never tell me the odds!"--------
Ray Olszewski -- Han Solo
Palo Alto, California, USA [email protected]
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Take the b option out of there completely I think. Blocks are used for tapes but not normally disk devices such as floppy disks.

Jude <dashielljt(at)gmpexpress-dot-net>

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