opening '.arc' files with ark or karchiver

[jimg]

I have a few hundred files from an old backup that are stored in the sea/pkarc format. It's no problem to view these files from the command line using the arc utility, but I would like to open these with ark or karchiver instead.ark gives the error message: "This file appears to be of type application/x-arc, which is not a supported archive format. In order to proceed, please choose the format of the file."A drop-down box appears with a list of file types, but arc isn't listed. How can I convince ark to open these files?karchiver just opens two additional copies of itself instead of opening the file but doesn't give any error messages.

[Bruno]

It's no problem to view these files from the command line using the arc utility

Hi Jim . . . I think you should be happy there is a tool to open them at all . . . because:

Files with the .arc extension are relatively rare. If you do stumble upon one of them, you can reasonably assume that it was created with the help of old MS-DOS SAE ARC or PKware PKARC archival utilities. This format is not well supported on Linux, and you can only hope to decompress those files on a Linux machine. If you need to create .arc files, try running original SAE ARC or PKware PKARC (look for them on FTP servers carrying utilities for MS-DOS) under DOSEMU or VMware.

That is what you get with propriety formats :'(The creator of the pkarc format, Phillip W. Katz. died in the year 2000 and took his secrets with him Bruno

[striker]

There should be a utility called 'unarc' , maybe for your distro it is in the repos. Have a look if it is in there.