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WinRAR Recovery Files

 
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Keikai



Joined: 18 Feb 2002
Posts: 178
Location: Miami, FL

PostPosted: Fri Mar 08, 2002 11:39 am    Post subject: WinRAR Recovery Files Reply with quote

Frustration was mounting as I researched the WinRAR recovery files that are being introduced in version 3 of WinRAR for the FAQ today, so I decided to author a post here. I'm personally quite frustrated with what the author has done. In fact, I'm not entirely sure what he has done since he decided to make a proprietary format.

I'd like to suggest that I, or someone else, either start an online petition or contact the author of WinRAR and request that he please revert to a true parchive format file and make it the default for his recovery process (or eliminate the proprietary version altogether). Even if he wants to use his new naming system on it (and have extensions like .part01.par, .part02.par, etc.) it shouldn't be too much of a hassle for parchive client authors to adjust for the naming and therefore might make the suggestion more palatable to him.

I'd also very much like to hear what T. Rieper has to say on this. Perhaps I'm being alarmist, but two formats to do one thing is going to cause troubles. We've already had one poster post both parchive and rar recovery files which served no particular function. I'd like to hear what other opinions are on the issue and also on how to resolve it. I did test whether or not renaming the rev files according to parchive naming standards would allow parchvie clients to read them, and they could not, which lends credence to my belief that it is completely proprietary.

Also, I plan, in the next FAQ revision which I'm trying to have ready to send to xo tomorrow, on recommending against using RAR recovery files and to use parchive files instead. Does anyone object to this? I will remove this or reword it after release of the revision if anyone has any constructive criticism. Because I'm adding that note according to what I think folks feel about it, I need to get an idea of the group's opinion before I keep it there, as it is important to me that the FAQ reflect the collective opinions of its regulars and contributors and not simply its maintainers.

Lastly, if someone decides to create a petition or contact the author, I'd like to recommend only doing so if you have registered the RAR product with Rarsoft. It might be best if a registered licensee, like myself, creates the petition to lend more credence to the request. Perhaps, if others feel as I do, we should draft the petition here and then I'll create it (with an explanation that it was written by a consortium of rar users).
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Gorunova



Joined: 10 Feb 2002
Posts: 318
Location: Burnaby, B.C., Canada

PostPosted: Fri Mar 08, 2002 11:47 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

My opinion:

(1) PAR is a better extension than REV anyway, and will work just as well with the new .partxx. naming scheme. What the heck does REV mean? PAR makes a nice pun on RAR, and is also short for Parity.

(2) PAR is already well established as a recovery data format, but introducing a new one won't be the end of the world. It'll just mean that RAR has its own, and the rest of the world will use PARs.

(3) Proprietary and non-free equals bad. I'm opposed to RAR itself for this reason. I would prefer we develop a free, open, platform-independant archive format designed to ease newsgroup posting the way RAR does, and incorporate PAR support in the archiver.
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Orqyman



Joined: 27 Feb 2002
Posts: 98
Location: Dallas, TX

PostPosted: Sat Mar 09, 2002 12:58 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I agree with Gournova and you on this one. Par just seems more natural and works better than that naming convention the guy came up with. Especially since the current par programs work so well, with one click checking and recovering rather quickly and painlessly..

I'd hate to have to continue using antiquated software, as newer is usually better, but in rare cases, older ones function well, and newer versions don't add enough to warrant change. One program that I still use that comes to mind is lviewpro 1.D2.

Dunno if I could be part of the petition, since I've pretty much cracked every version of winrar I've used. But if so, I'd probably just ask that the author just use the current par format as his parity. I don't even know why he came with his own proprietary format instead of just adopting what was proven and what was out there.

dunno what TR would say to this, but most likely he would agree to these points. The main goal was Winrar incorporation, but I doubt TR had this current state in mind.

Shouldn't get too ahead of myself...
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Neuralblastoma



Joined: 19 Feb 2002
Posts: 109
Location: Ottawa Ontario Canada

PostPosted: Sat Mar 09, 2002 9:44 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'll just add to this by saying that I too hate .REV.

I had to use them once and coudn't believe how long it took to regenerate just one RAR. It was sooooooooo slow!

PAR is fast and works very well.
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xo
Site Admin


Joined: 09 Feb 2002
Posts: 466
Location: Los Angeles [comcast]

PostPosted: Sat Mar 09, 2002 11:29 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Gorunova wrote:

(3) Proprietary and non-free equals bad. I'm opposed to RAR itself for this reason. I would prefer we develop a free, open, platform-independant archive format designed to ease newsgroup posting the way RAR does, and incorporate PAR support in the archiver.


I so support this idea. I resent that the whole RAR format is under the control of one entity and we have to depend on them for addressing needs. This WinRAR3 issue further drives the point home: no Mac versions to handle the new archive formats. You want to use the new format? You just fucked the Mac people out there, probably without even knowing it.

Do we even need rar anymore? The only real benefit I can think of prior to PAR was the ability to use recovery records. Even that was of infrequent utility since most of the time the problem wasn't the kind of corruption that could be recovered- more commonly archives were coming up short a few bytes (at least that's what I saw way more often on my end- admittedly this will vary with newsservers).

In the age of PAR (all hail Tobias!), I think the recovery functionality can be superceded by built-in parchive features. At the most basic level, just use 'split', make some pars for the chunks, and we've rid ourself of the rarsoft yoke.

Of course it'll never fly until there's a pretty GUI app for Windows, but there's not much more needed than that. Compression? Not really a benefit for multimedia (and is rar used for much else?). And zlib, or some other open compression format, can be incorporated if it's really needed.

Once a nice Windows app is out, some Unix guy will knock out a quick and dirty command line version. That'll get ported to MacOSX in short order and be released as $25 shareware. Classic MacOS users will continue to be screwed, but they're (I'm) used to it by now :p. Lots of heated discussion across all of Usenet ("NAR SUCKS!!! WHY CAN'T YOU USE RAR?!?"). Newbie questions along the lines of "What is this N00 file?" for years to come. Aah, the new world order!

OK, enough ranting ...

So who's up to the challenge Twisted Evil ?
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AlienBoy



Joined: 27 Feb 2002
Posts: 70
Location: Middle Management

PostPosted: Sat Mar 09, 2002 12:19 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Just adding that I hate .rev too. Long live .Par! .Par 0wnz joo! .Par > All. Hmm...can't think of many more geeky ways to get this across.
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Keikai



Joined: 18 Feb 2002
Posts: 178
Location: Miami, FL

PostPosted: Sat Mar 09, 2002 12:29 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

xo wrote:

Of course it'll never fly until there's a pretty GUI app for Windows, but there's not much more needed than that. Compression? And zlib, or some other open compression format, can be incorporated if it's really needed.
<snip>
So who's up to the challenge Twisted Evil ?


That's actually an interesting point. I hadn't thought of this until you mentioned the above, but the Decompression Chamber app I'm working on, that several of the regulars are beta testing, is a Windows front end for the rar, ace, and zip command line utils (with native support for split files also). I could conceivably (actually relatively easily as I wrote it to do so) extend it to other command line compression tools. HOWEVER, it is geared only towards dearchiving and not archiving. But it's a potential starting point. The biggest thing to overcome is the decompression/dearchiving since, oddly enough, its the approval of the mass leeches (or a concerted effort by all regulars) that tends to matter most in situations like this.

Its a bit much for me to think about at the moment, but once I have support for Winrar 3 file naming and fix a few other things, I would consider, once a public beta of DC is out and regulars and others can see if they care for it, adding other compression utils to be supported by DC. The only other problem is I wrote it to be powerful and with a specific purpose in mind, as I hate wimpy GUIs, which also means it's less user-friendly than the masses tend to like. Specifically I wrote it for us (the denizens of AB(M)A) with the hopes others would follow suit for non-Windows OSes. But, as I said, it could be a starting point. If there is interest in this I'll try to get a public beta out within a few weeks. Actually I'm planning on that anyways. This still leaves the problem of no GUI for non-Windows OSes, and, frankly, I can't take the kind of time that would be necessary to write one. But it's less of an issue since non-Windows users tend to be at peace with the beloved command-line.

Of course, I _still_ like RAR recovery records even though admittedly they are of less necessity since the advent of parchive. I think open sourcing just the RAR format would be ideal for everyone, except, most importantly, Rarsoft. Smile Furthermore, I'm generally against fragmenting the issue even further. I think some of these options should be a last resort. There is no telling what contacting or petitioning Rarsoft might manage, and an open-source RAR format would be far better than any other option I can think of, unlikely though it might be.
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oblio



Joined: 20 Feb 2002
Posts: 106
Location: Detroix, MI

PostPosted: Sat Mar 09, 2002 6:52 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

xo wrote:

...I resent that the whole RAR format is under the control of one entity and we have to depend on them for addressing needs....The only real benefit I can think of prior to PAR was the ability to use recovery records. Even that was of infrequent utility since most of the time the problem wasn't the kind of corruption that could be recovered- more commonly archives were coming up short a few bytes (at least that's what I saw way more often on my end- admittedly this will vary with newsservers).


Recovery records fix a different kind of corruption than parity archives, and do it in a very efficient manner. I would be loathe to get rid of recovery records. The problem you speak of with short files is indeed frustrating. I have written a program that fixes them much of the time, but it is written for unix/windows. Since you are a mac user, I'd gladly offer the source, but make no promises about the software. It works enough for me that I doubt I'll ever improve it without external influence.

Disregarding recovery records, if compression isn't an issue (and with mpeg2 and up it really isn't) then there are already plenty of split/join utilities out there.

What rar really gives you is a one stop compression/recovery_record/splitting solution that throws in zip compatability and nice window dressing on top of that. I actually support the continued use of rar, and would hope that rarsoft gets its ass in gear vis a vis Mac users.

All that said, if someone came up with a combined splitter/recovery-record solution in a GPL cross platform way, I would be happy to give it a shot. Hell, I'd be happy to help work on it.

And just to stay on topic, I think its a REAL shame that Roshal didn't just add parchive support into winrar. It was probably a licensing issue, but I feel fairly confident that the parchive people would have been willing to LGPL or dual-license the stuff for rar.
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Gorunova



Joined: 10 Feb 2002
Posts: 318
Location: Burnaby, B.C., Canada

PostPosted: Sun Mar 10, 2002 12:26 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

[quote="xo"]
[quote="Gorunova"]
Of course it'll never fly until there's a pretty GUI app for Windows, but there's not much more needed than that. Compression? Not really a benefit for multimedia (and is rar used for much else?). And zlib, or some other open compression format, can be incorporated if it's really needed.

Once a nice Windows app is out, some Unix guy will knock out a quick and dirty command line version.

So who's up to the challenge Twisted Evil ?
[/quote]

I am. But first I want to point out that if this is going to happen, I want to see it done right. None of that "Windows first, then port" crap. The right way to do it is to write the guts - the splitting, compression (if any), recovery record and PARchive stuff - in a completely generic platform-independant library format, THEN cruft on a platform-dependant interface as needed. That way it's bitch-ass simple and clean to support any OS under the sun. If CC can build the meaty part under Irix, anyone can build it anywhere.

Trust me, I've made every design mistake in the book. Mad

But before we go running off with our pants around our ankles over this idea, I'd like to pursue simpler options.

The first would be for someone credible (ie, a long-time registered user) to talk to the RarSoft guy. Tell him there's a lot of support and desire for PARchives, but his should be interoperable with PARs for maximum user acceptance and the performance really needs improving. REVs don't necessarily have to be identical to PARs, but it would be great if Rar could recognize and use PARs at a minimum.

The second option would be what some other people have suggested - just co-opt an existing freeware file splitter by making a luser-friendly front end for it. Explorer integration under Windows would help a lot. This is less desirable because it means introducing and promoting a new format, but it's still less work than writing a completely new archiver from scratch.

As for me, I'm willing to help out with programming if need be - I damn well should be, since it was my idea - but since I'm a grad student and supposed to be working on my thesis, I can't promise overnight solutions to the world's problems. Idea
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Keikai



Joined: 18 Feb 2002
Posts: 178
Location: Miami, FL

PostPosted: Sun Mar 10, 2002 9:12 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
The first would be for someone credible (ie, a long-time registered user) to talk to the RarSoft guy.

Somewhere along the way, this point got lost. It was actually a primary point of my original post, long-winded though it was. What I was looking for was people's advice on whether direct contact or a petition would be more valuable (I feel direct contact myself), and, I thought we could draft the request together. Then if someone has been a reg. user longer than myself or, even better, has had positive communication with Rarsoft, they should make the contact, otherwise I'd be willing to.

Quote:
just co-opt an existing freeware file splitter by making a luser-friendly front end for it

Some day we need to have a chat so I can express my opinions why it is not universal that GUI == evil. Both command-line and GUIs have their strengths. The problem is not with GUIs but rather with the fact that most GUI authors are forced (or are only capable of) writing for the lusers. It's very frustrating when a client wants a redesign an interface because it had "too many options" no matter how well engineered their location is. Evil or Very Mad Well that's going WAY off topic but I really felt a need to say it...

Anyways, I agree that all other options should be explored first. With the number of archiving formats that have popped up over the years, I'd be surprised if a cookie-cutter option isn't available. Then, we should have a look around sourceforge to make sure there isn't already a solution that would work just as well. Then, and only then, should a new format be considered. If it ends up there, I'd recommend running it just like parchive was over at sourceforge. Then, once you have a format and source for a command-line app everything else will spring from that. Once an OS-nonspecific command-line app is available, people writing a GUI for this or that OS is not the issue. That can be done later and is inevitable if the format is worth the small effort.
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Tobias Rieper



Joined: 18 Feb 2002
Posts: 41
Location: Berlin, Germany

PostPosted: Sun Mar 10, 2002 11:45 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Okay, I'm a bit busy these days and didn't look into the board. I didn't read all posts here also and so I'm probably missing some of your statements here...

I just want to write some quick lines to defend the revs.

1. format change:
To non-usenet people, the only application for the rev files is to create "parity disks" for floppy sets. (hehe, RAID with floppys Wink ) Therefore the parity volumes mustn't be bigger than the rar volumes. This is one of the reasons why they made a new system. (Please notice, that .rev hasn't the "system bug" of .par)

2. extensions:
The new naming sheme makes sense to me. I like it.
(But that's a question of taste...)

3. speed:
Okay, the first versions were really awful, but it seems that the usenet people already gave Rarsoft the hell on earth...
They optimized it in beta 4 and now it is at the speed level of SmartPar and FSRaid. Now only UI tweaks are left...

4. cross platform and portability:
Yes, that's the big drawback here. As long, as there are versions for *nix and Mac missing, the revs have a big disadvantage...

What now? I dunno...
Basically, the revs are usable now, but some features (like search and rename) are missing. So even I consider PAR still as the better system.

Mirror was only intended as a proof of concept. Looks like the concept proved too fast as too useful and went standard. (This week, the PARs were mentioned in germanys biggest computer magazine for the first time. Very Happy )
Nothing lasts longer than a temporary solution... Wink

So much for a quick reply. I have more opinions and suggestions about the future of par and rev, but not the time to type them...

...to Be continued

T.Rieper

Is it just me, or was there never any Seikai no Senki stuff posted in ABPEA? Sad
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Melchior



Joined: 19 Feb 2002
Posts: 190
Location: Vancouver, BC, Canada

PostPosted: Mon Mar 11, 2002 10:52 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Tobias Rieper wrote:

(This week, the PARs were mentioned in germanys biggest computer magazine for the first time. :D )
Nothing lasts longer than a temporary solution... :wink:


Congratulations!

(and on the subject of temporary solutions, 27 years ago my dad started a temporary summer teaching job...)

-Melchior
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xo
Site Admin


Joined: 09 Feb 2002
Posts: 466
Location: Los Angeles [comcast]

PostPosted: Mon Mar 11, 2002 11:42 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

oblio wrote:

I have written a program that fixes them much of the time, but it is written for unix/windows. Since you are a mac user, I'd gladly offer the source, but make no promises about the software. It works enough for me that I doubt I'll ever improve it without external influence.


I actually do all my Usenet related activity under Linux nowadays, so I'd be interested in seeing your utility. AFAIK, the Linux unrar does not have the ability to do recoveries at all, which is further fuel for my fire.

oblio wrote:

I actually support the continued use of rar, and would hope that rarsoft gets its ass in gear vis a vis Mac users.


Given that they never released a Mac version (they just link to a buggy as hell shareware port done by some guy who hasn't updated in ages), I doubt this will ever happen.

That's the thing- I don't have a problem with RAR as a technology. For example, the recovery record thing is pretty nifty and ideally any theoretical RAR replacement should look into including such a thing (seems like magic to me, but I'm not much of a programmer). I just don't like that it's a closed technology and as a consequence non-Windows users have to put up with ports that are lacking features, delayed (if ever released), and/or buggy. None of the other technologies we run into in the course of Usenet activity (NNTP, uuencode, yenc, MIME, PAR, etc) are closed. Why put up with this one? When the yenc revolution started, Forte users were fucked, but they could always go get another news client that handled yenc, because yenc was open. New RAR format? No Mac version? No options.

My, I'm starting to sound like one of those knee-jerk Slashdot zealots Surprised. And since I can't program my way out of hat, I'm the worst kind.
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oblio



Joined: 20 Feb 2002
Posts: 106
Location: Detroix, MI

PostPosted: Tue Mar 12, 2002 8:18 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

xo wrote:

I actually do all my Usenet related activity under Linux nowadays, so I'd be interested in seeing your utility. AFAIK, the Linux unrar does not have the ability to do recoveries at all, which is further fuel for my fire.


I think that is true of all versions of unrar, however there is a rar version for linux that supports recovery records.

NOTE: The recovery record support is highly tempormental, and I'm having a lot of trouble putting together files that repair in linux. As far as I can tell, Roshal doesn't check his seek targets very aggressively and ends up segfaulting all over the place.

Quote:
Given that they never released a Mac version (they just link to a buggy as hell shareware port done by some guy who hasn't updated in ages), I doubt this will ever happen.


I didn't know that was the state of rar+mac. That is very unfortunate.

Quote:
I just don't like that it's a closed technology and as a consequence non-Windows users have to put up with ports that are lacking features, delayed (if ever released), and/or buggy.


Well, I'm as much a GPL freak as the next guy, so rather than expand on your frustration I'll just say this- Consolidation to the MS platform has been going on for a long time, and continues to do so to the detriment of computer users as a whole. Relevant to us are such things as codec support, NNTP transport issues, and packaging technology. With divx4/5, as well as mpeg 1 and 2, linux and mac are supported, and anything the IETF handles (such as NNTP) is guarenteed to be open. Because of this, I think it is reasonable to pursue an OS packaging technology, and suggest that someone setup a sourceforge board or mailing list to discuss. Its possible that something like this is already underway- is hjsplit open? *shrug*
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