Opening .rar files

Robin Laing Robin.Laing at drdc-rddc.gc.ca
Mon Oct 29 19:51:12 UTC 2007


Tim wrote:
> Wong Kwok-hon:
>>> How about to compress to RAR ? Which software can ?
> 
> Kevin Kofler:
>> Don't.
>> 1. By using RAR, you help spreading a proprietary format which cannot
>> be opened with Free Software. (All the decompressors I've seen are
>> derived from the original non-Free unrar.)
>> 2. You have to use a proprietary program to compress, too.
>> 3. You even have to pay to use said compressor legally. 
>> ...[snip]...
> 
> I agree, the original poster has already experienced annoyances at
> having to do something to unpack yet another archive format, why subject
> yet another person to the same thing?  The first time I had to deal with
> a RAR file on Windows, it was a right pain.  It was even worse when I
> had to deal with one on Linux, the first time around.
> 
> RAR's supposed to have some good features, particularly to do with
> sending large files as a split set of archives, but I doubt that it's
> going to be significantly better at it than other schemes.
> 

I would love an open source program that does what RAR files do.  With 
the addition of PAR2 files, the RAR files or compressed files can be 
repaired.

I would love a tool that does RAR with PGP built in.  Any programmers 
out there?

The problem is RAR is used heavily in usenet.  RAR is not only a 
compression tool but a splitter and a great archiving tool.

FWIW, there is a rpm "par2cmdline" that generates and works with par2 
files.  This is part of Fedora.

I have unrar from livna.


-- 
Robin Laing




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