lastlog devours universe

[Michael Wiktowy]

On Wed, 2005-06-08 at 16:11 -0700, Andy Ross wrote:
> I wrote:
> > Apparently tar implements sparse files by simply detecting and
> > condensing large blocks of zeros in the input file, which means that
> > it has to actually read all 1.2TB of nothingness to do its job.
> >
> > It's been working for 52 minutes now on my 1.8GHz Athlon64 laptop.  I
> > have no idea how much longer I will be waiting.
> 
> Just for the record: 1h48m46s to generate a 10240 byte output file.
> 
> Andy
> 

How long does it take without using --sparse (and compressing the
output, I suppose)?

/Mike