This. I guess anyone who began using UNIX systems back in the SunOS days or earlier would never think of using cp for this job. Well, mostly because the vendor-

This. I guess anyone who began using UNIX systems back in the SunOS days or earlier would never think of using cp for this job. Well, mostly because the vendor-provided cp usually sucked badly (no recursive copy), but also because tar has always been such a great, reliable tool. The only disadvantage of tar is its peculiar syntax, but that's something you get used to.