Hello Neil,

On Sat, Sep 21, 2002 at 07:38:01AM -0500, Neil wrote:
> Gene Heskett writes: 
> > 3) mt -f /dev/sra0 datcompression off
> 
> I "man mt" but didn't find similar option as above. 

there are different implementations of the mt utlitiy. On my Debian 3.0
system I find:

- GNU mt version 2.4.2 from the cpio package:
"... This package also includes rmt, the remote tape server, and GNU mt, a
tape drive control program.  The mt program is essential for magnetic
tape drive users.  Debian's version of GNU mt supports SCSI tape
drives."

and 

- mt-st v. 0.7, package mt-st:
"Linux SCSI tape driver aware magnetic tape control (aka. mt) Mt-st
contains a version of "mt" that is aware of Linux's SCSI tape driver.
Mt-st is able to set some esoteric control flags like tape partitions.
Mt-st diverts (replaces) the GNU version of mt, in the cpio package.
It also comes with stinit, a program to be run at boot time to set up
tape defaults."

The GNU mt manpage mentions the datcompression operation, while mt-st
knows about compression and defcompression (default compression state).

Greetings,
Martin