HDUP2 - README To compile and install hdup2 just do a: ./configure && make install Current Issues #1 hdup2 does not include directory information in the backup. Why? Because Gnu tar cannot handle that correctly. If hdup2 would include this information in the backup list, the backup (ie. the tar file) would include everything twice! Yes, this is a bug in Gnu tar and will be fixed eventually. So hdup2 does not include this information. Related to this is that empty directories are not included in the archive. As soon as Gnu tar can handle this, hdup2 will be able to handle this. I've included a patch to tar, which when applied will allow you to do sane backups. #2 Older tar's (1.3.25) do not work reliabily with hdup2. If you cannot upgrade Gnu tar to a more modern version don't upgrade to hdup2, but stay with hdup1.6. Current Gnu tar releases are for instance 1.15.1.