Hi all,

I've recently upgraded my amanda server. The machine was a Pentium-II
350, and was running with hardware compression, but is now a dual
processor Athlon 2000+, so I've switched it over to software
compression. The tape drive is a Quantum DLT drive, and I'm wondering
how to turn of compression on the tapes.

Having read all about dd'ing zeros to the start of the tape, and
rewriting the label, I was preparing myself for trouble, but the tape
drive seems to be OK to just turn compression off with mt:-

# mt -f /dev/nst0 datcompression
Compression off.
Compression capable.
Decompression capable.

I turned compression off, and loaded a new tape (which has previously
been written compressed). The compression setting remained off according
to mt, and the transfer rate to tape has been about 4700 - 4800 KB/s for
large filesystems. Is that it? I'd believe it, but all the messages
about turning compression off being problematic have left me wondering
whether it's really off....

Secondly, as my filesystems have grown, my reports have become less tidy
- the columns of figures are running together. Is there an easy way to
tell amanda to space the columns on reports out a bit more??

TIA,

Mike.