[Cialug] Alien inconsistent output

[Jeff Chapin]

I would suspect that there is something about the metadata that is causing
this -- like a build date or something -- and it happens to push the
resulting files over or under a cutoff point, and things get rounded up.

a .deb is just some tarballs in an wrapping archive format -- you could
unpack the various .deb files in to dir1, dir2, and dir3, and then use diff
-r to see what is different.

On Wed, May 13, 2020 at 6:34 PM jim kraai <jimgkraai at gmail.com> wrote:

> as computer scientists, we're taught that computers are deterministic
>
> once you experience the nondeterminism, you're ready for the next step
>
> red pill or blue?
>
> On Wed, May 13, 2020, 16:13 Daniel A. Ramaley <daniel.ramaley at drake.edu>
> wrote:
>
> > Running into a really weird problem.
> >
> > I'm trying to use alien to convert an RPM to a DEB. I ran it 3 times on
> > the input package. Each time it gave different output! On a 46 MB
> > package the output only varied by about 8 kB. So it's not a huge
> > variance. But i would expect that if i have a program that transforms
> > data, and i give it the exact same data, it should give the exact same
> > result. Right? Is there something wrong? Or something i am not
> > understanding?
> >
> > It's extra annoying because in certain circles the word "alien" seems to
> > mean something else so when i search for alien size differences i get
> > all sorts of conspiracy-theory and sci-fi style sites talking about
> > fantastical creatures.
> >
> > __
> > Daniel Ramaley
> > Server Engineer 2, Information Technology Services
> > Drake University
> >
> > T: +1-515-271-4540
> > W: https://www.drake.edu/its
> > _______________________________________________
> > Cialug mailing list
> > Cialug at cialug.org
> > https://www.cialug.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/cialug
> >
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-- 
Jeff Chapin
President, CedarLug, retired
President, UNIPC, "I'll get around to it"
President, UNI Scuba Club
Senator, NISG, retired