This is the normal (yet unexplained AFAIK) behavior of many compression tools like gzip, bzip2 and xz, to refuse to compress a file with a link count > 1, unless you give the --force option. The actual questions here are "why do my NTFS files have a link count of 2?" (see COMP6366_V01_02_15_2011.wmv in the OP) and "why does this link count drop to 1 when I rename the file?"
This is due to the DOS name mangling system (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filename_mangling and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8.3_filename). When a file (say "TextFile.Mine.txt") was copied on the NTFS partition with a 8.3 mangled filename (say "TEXTFI~1.TXT"), then it is presented by the ntfs-3g driver only once, in its long form. But the file continues to be accessible by both names: "TEXTFI~1.TXT" (hidden) and "TextFile.Mine.txt" (displayed). Hence the link count of 2, one for each name. And this is also why the link count drops to 1 when you rename the file: the mangled version disappear. You may want to reassign this bug to the ntfs-3g package, arguing that the link count should be 1. Personally I don't think this is an obvious bad choice but others may disagree. So, what else? Should we close this bug? Actually, I don't think so. I think it should be renamed to "Gzip / bzip2 / xz refuse to compress files with a link count > 1". As said above, I have yet to read a good reason for gzip/bzip2/xz to _refuse_ to compress a file with more than one hard link. Even with the --keep option! Why not just a mere warning? Imposing a --force flag on e.g. script writers for the sole reason that files may have many hard links, does not seem quite safe to me. gzip is a very old program (25 years old?). My guess is that this is an unfortunate legacy of a formerly legitimate behavior (for security reasons for example?) which has absolutely no raison d'être nowadays. bzip2 and xz have just blindly copied gzip's interface. -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Touch seeded packages, which is subscribed to bzip2 in Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/722910 Title: xz fails with hardlink errors on ntfs partition Status in bzip2 package in Ubuntu: Confirmed Status in xz-utils package in Ubuntu: Confirmed Bug description: Binary package hint: xz-utils After mounting an ntfs partition using dolphin in kubuntu, xz fails to compress any file on the ntfs partition. $ [sudo] xz -9 COMP6366_V01_02_15_2011.wmv xz: COMP6366_V01_02_15_2011.wmv: Input file has more than one hard link, skipping More information about the file: $ ls -la COMP6366_V01_02_15_2011.wmv -rwxrwxrwx 2 root root 332122239 2011-02-15 16:36 COMP6366_V01_02_15_2011.wmv Workaround: Renaming the file will allow xz to perform the compression. $ mv COMP6366_V01_02_15_2011.wmv COMP6366_V01_02_15_2011.wmv2 && mv COMP6366_V01_02_15_2011.wmv2 COMP6366_V01_02_15_2011.wmv $ xz -9 COMP6366_V01_02_15_2011.wmv After mounting an ntfs partition using dolphin in kubuntu, xz fails to compress any file on the ntfs partition. $ [sudo] xz -9 COMP6366_V01_02_15_2011.wmv xz: COMP6366_V01_02_15_2011.wmv: Input file has more than one hard link, skipping More information about the file: $ ls -la COMP6366_V01_02_15_2011.wmv -rwxrwxrwx 2 root root 332122239 2011-02-15 16:36 COMP6366_V01_02_15_2011.wmv Workaround: Renaming the file will allow xz to perform the compression. $ mv COMP6366_V01_02_15_2011.wmv COMP6366_V01_02_15_2011.wmv2 && mv COMP6366_V01_02_15_2011.wmv2 COMP6366_V01_02_15_2011.wmv $ xz -9 COMP6366_V01_02_15_2011.wmv $ ls -la COMP6366_V01_02_15_2011.wmv.xz -rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 325158580 2011-02-15 16:36 COMP6366_V01_02_15_2011.wmv.xz Any file that is modified or placed onto the ntfs partition from within ubuntu is fine - this bug only exists for files that already existed on my Windows XP system. $ lsb_release -rd Description: Ubuntu 10.10 Release: 10.10 $ xz -V xz (XZ Utils) 4.999.9beta liblzma 4.999.9beta $ apt-cache policy xz-utils xz-utils: Installed: 4.999.9beta+20100527-1 Candidate: 4.999.9beta+20100527-1 Version table: *** 4.999.9beta+20100527-1 0 500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ maverick/main amd64 Packages 100 /var/lib/dpkg/status ProblemType: Bug DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.10 Package: xz-utils 4.999.9beta+20100527-1 ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.35-23.40-generic 2.6.35.7 Uname: Linux 2.6.35-23-generic x86_64 NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia Architecture: amd64 Date: Mon Feb 21 18:39:05 2011 InstallationMedia: Kubuntu 9.10 "Karmic Koala" - Release amd64 (20091027) ProcEnviron: LANGUAGE= PATH=(custom, user) LANG=en_US.UTF-8 SHELL=/bin/bash SourcePackage: xz-utils To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/bzip2/+bug/722910/+subscriptions -- Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~touch-packages Post to : touch-packages@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~touch-packages More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
