2 ms·
> Once that is done, you no longer has such "native support for RAR, 7-Zip, Tar and other archive formats" problem to start with. This distinction seems pretty
by babypuncher 3y ago
> Once that is done, you no longer has such "native support for RAR, 7-Zip, Tar and other archive formats" problem to start with.
This distinction seems pretty silly since only tar actually comes with linux out of the box. Everything else requires you to install another software package, as has been the case on Windows for decades.
- pxc 3y ago1. There's no such thing as 'Linux out of the box'. 2. This is complete nonsense. Any desktop distro comes with support for a wide variety of archive formats in their archiving apps as well as their file managers. GNOME Archive Manager, KDE's Ark and File Roller all support literally dozens of formats. So do Dolphin (via KIO), Nautilus (via libarchive and/or GVFS), and Thunar (via its archive manager plugin which wraps various CLI tools). On the vast majority of Linux operating systems comparable to Windows (i.e., coming with a GUI), normal use has never required desktop users to manually install software just to open an archive. The only exception would be Windows gamers downloading warez for use under emulation in patent-encumbered archive formats for which archiving tools would not be legal to freely distribute in some jurisdictions.
- babypuncher 3y agoBy "out of the box", I mean the kernel and the GNU utilities that comprise the base of 99% of Linux distros. Also, Ark and other archiving tools commonly distributed with popular distros do not support RAR. It doesn't really matter if you think the format is only used for illegitimate purposes. Really I'm just trying to point out how dumb it is to say that Microsoft should just abandon Windows and switch to Linux instead of rolling out their own support for new archive formats.