brian medley writes:
> Did you try making the 'bin' directory (with
> correct permissions) before untaring?

yes, and that works fine, as long as you have only one
simple directory (like my example).  i really have a
directory tree, with many branches, which is not
practical to create ahead of time.

> tar has the option --mode=PERMISSIONS which may help you
> in your problem.  However, I don't know if it will do
> exactly what you want because it changes the permissions
> for *every* file in the archive.

            >>>>>>>>> VOILA!! <<<<<<<<<<<<

  tar czvf bin.tgz --mode=u+w -C /mnt/cdrom/skl bin
  tar xzvf bin.tgz

yup, mode doesn't show up on the man pages, but works
just dandy.  in essence, it solves my problem perfectly.

thanks all,

dan moylan