Why doesn't Debian etch have bzip2?

[hazel]

The other day I downloaded a tarball and found out that I couldn't unzip it because I didn't have bzip2. That was surprising, but what shocked me was that I couldn't install bzip2 with apt either. It isn't in the repository. I always thought that bzip2 was a normal part of any Linux distro. Now I know that Debian is extremely picky about programs that don't satisfy its own very exacting definition of free software but what's wrong with bzip2? Does anyone know?

[GNU-Fan]

bzip2 is on agreement with the Debian policy and it is by all means available from the main repository of Etch. Debian -- Details of package bzip2 in etch

I do not use aptitude but in dselect I could search for "bzip2" and found it.

Maybe you obtain your packages from an incomplete mirror? Check your
/etc/apt/sources.list where the address of your distributor can be found.

[hazel]

The only addresses I have listed are:

deb Index of /debian etch main
deb-src Index of /debian etch main

deb Debian -- Security Information etch/updates main contrib
deb-src Debian -- Security Information etch/updates main contrib

Should there be others?

btw I installed bzip2 from source so I have it now.

[GNU-Fan]

Should there be others?

No, looks fine, provided the UK mirror repo is not stripped down, but this is very unlikely. I think you have just overlooked it for some reason.

btw I installed bzip2 from source so I have it now.

Haha, way to go.
(But keep in mind you are responsible to keep track of security issues by yourself for this program now.)

[Freston]

I unzip all my .bz2's with ye olde

tar -xvjf

[hazel]

I unzip all my .bz2's with ye olde

tar -xvjf

Now why didn't I think of that? It's so bloody obvious!

[GNU-Fan]

I think it would have complained because tar, at least GNU tar, does rely on and invoke the standalone program bzip2 if called with this option.