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Tar Files Created on macOS Display Errors When Extracting on Linux (2024)

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Re: Tar Files Created on macOS Display Errors When Extracting on Linux (2024)

#11

Post by cozzyd »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #8
LatencyKills wrote: post #2

Ex-Apple engineer here. This is, for better or worse, just the way Apple approaches this type of problem. From Apple's perspective, this is the way to preserve Finder / Gatekeeper / metadata semantics. It avoids silent data loss when round-tripping archives between Macs. This behavior also maintains consistency with copyfile(3) (as well as the Archive Utility behavior). Apple treats tar less like “portable Unix inter…

It's a good attitude to have, in my opinion. Portability is overrated. Linux developers should be doing a lot more of this. We should be making everything work better for us without caring how it's going to impact other irrelevant platforms. Let the people who actually care about those platforms worry about such things.

It would at least be nice if there was a way to keep apple users from shitting all over the filesystem with remote mounts and ds_store files. Perhaps by automatically unmounting if one is detected.

Re: Tar Files Created on macOS Display Errors When Extracting on Linux (2024)

#12

Post by danielheath »

angry_octet wrote: post #9

We might also ask, why doesn't Linux also track such meta-data? Are Linux users not also subject to drive-by downloads impersonating valid files? Should we be one chmod a+x away from compromise?

Yes, we should be.

My computer should run programs when I tell it to run them.

Don’t blunt _every_ tool just to make them harder to cut yourself on.

Re: Tar Files Created on macOS Display Errors When Extracting on Linux (2024)

#14

Post by ryandrake »

taftster wrote: post #5
Terretta wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Arguably, principle of least surprise is very Apple. If I point "tape archive" at a file system, I want that file system archived to tape. And so, tar does. If I don't, well, that's a fine option, and there's a fine option for that. So it's less of a "workaround" or something that "gets worse", than, "No, I don't really want a tape archive of this filesystem, only of some of it." And that's supported. That said, neve…

> That said, never seeing another .DS_Store should be a system-wide option! Yes please.

.DS_Store, .fseventsd, .Spotlight-V100, .Trashes, and ._this and ._that

These can all die in a fire too, as far as I am concerned. macOS loves to treat the user's filesystem as its own personal garbage dump.

Re: Tar Files Created on macOS Display Errors When Extracting on Linux (2024)

#15

Post by gerdesj »

ryandrake wrote: post #14
taftster wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That said, never seeing another .DS_Store should be a system-wide option! Yes please.

.DS_Store, .fseventsd, .Spotlight-V100, .Trashes, and ._this and ._that These can all die in a fire too, as far as I am concerned. macOS loves to treat the user's filesystem as its own personal garbage dump.

thumbs.db and those weird MS alternative stream files for recording origination.

filesystem attributes are for decorating files with meaning. Anything else that attempts to use filesystems in "interesting" ways is silly.

Apple and MS really ought to consider why they do this sort of fragile, idiosyncratic nonsense.

Re: Tar Files Created on macOS Display Errors When Extracting on Linux (2024)

#16

Post by Joker_vD »

gerdesj wrote: post #15
ryandrake wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

.DS_Store, .fseventsd, .Spotlight-V100, .Trashes, and ._this and ._that These can all die in a fire too, as far as I am concerned. macOS loves to treat the user's filesystem as its own personal garbage dump.

thumbs.db and those weird MS alternative stream files for recording origination. filesystem attributes are for decorating files with meaning. Anything else that attempts to use filesystems in "interesting" ways is silly. Apple and MS really ought to consider why they do this sort of fragile, idiosyncratic nonsense.

But... thumbs.db is precisely not an "attempt to use filesystems in "interesting" ways" — it's literally a just hidden file with previews stored in it. Storing the preview in the alternative stream of the file with the picture itself would be "an interesting way".

Re: Tar Files Created on macOS Display Errors When Extracting on Linux (2024)

#17

Post by angry_octet »

danielheath wrote: post #12
angry_octet wrote: post #9

We might also ask, why doesn't Linux also track such meta-data? Are Linux users not also subject to drive-by downloads impersonating valid files? Should we be one chmod a+x away from compromise?

Yes, we should be. My computer should run programs when I tell it to run them. Don’t blunt _every_ tool just to make them harder to cut yourself on.

I hope you're in the very small minority of people who rigorously manage untrusted downloads and whitelist every binary, because you're operating an appliance from the 1970s, sticking a metal fork into an un-earthed toaster. Most people need help from their operating system.

Re: Tar Files Created on macOS Display Errors When Extracting on Linux (2024)

#18

Post by bitfilped »

angry_octet wrote: post #9

We might also ask, why doesn't Linux also track such meta-data? Are Linux users not also subject to drive-by downloads impersonating valid files? Should we be one chmod a+x away from compromise?

Should I be able to run files I download on my own computer? I think yes I should, hate fighting MacOS to do simple tasks because Apple engineers assume the end user has the average intelligence of an ostrich.

Re: Tar Files Created on macOS Display Errors When Extracting on Linux (2024)

#19

Post by Joker_vD »

danielheath wrote: post #12
angry_octet wrote: post #9

We might also ask, why doesn't Linux also track such meta-data? Are Linux users not also subject to drive-by downloads impersonating valid files? Should we be one chmod a+x away from compromise?

Yes, we should be. My computer should run programs when I tell it to run them. Don’t blunt _every_ tool just to make them harder to cut yourself on.

I sincerely agree. By the way, thanks for lending your machine for my "Network-Retransmission-and-Compute-as-a-service" network.

Re: Tar Files Created on macOS Display Errors When Extracting on Linux (2024)

#20

Post by amarant »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #7
Terretta wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Arguably, principle of least surprise is very Apple. If I point "tape archive" at a file system, I want that file system archived to tape. And so, tar does. If I don't, well, that's a fine option, and there's a fine option for that. So it's less of a "workaround" or something that "gets worse", than, "No, I don't really want a tape archive of this filesystem, only of some of it." And that's supported. That said, neve…

> Arguably, principle of least surprise is very Apple. Principle of least surprise is good engineering practice. The question is always whose surprise. Someone who expects tar to behave like other UNIX systems is going to be surprised by this. Someone who expects tar on Apple to have perfect fidelity would be surprised by not-this. I increasingly feel like build systems should never be relying on any "native" utiliti…

Nixos has a pretty solid solution to this issue: key your dependencies with checksums of the content. That way you get the best of both worlds: you always get the exact version you want, and you can share a copy of that exact version with other software that wants to use that exact version too!
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