tar or gnutar

[Chuck Swiger]

David Bear wrote:
> wondering if the tar packaged with base freebsd is the same as
> gnutar.. and possibly issues with versions.  

FreeBSD uses gnutar, yes:

13-sec# uname -sr
FreeBSD 4.8-STABLE
5-sec# /usr/bin/tar --version
tar (GNU tar) 1.13.25
Copyright (C) 2001 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

> the reason is I have a tarball created on a linux box with the gnutar
> that was packaged with it, yet tar tvf ... tells me it doesn't look
> like a tar archive, and quits... yuck.  any advice?

Was the tarball compressed, gziped, or whatever?  Try "tar ztf _file_"...