Symlink and Archiving issue

[Makhnoa]

I am trying to understand what on earth is happening with linux archiving tools such as 7z.
My 'workflow' involves backing up a lot of symlinks. I've always used 7z for this, sometimes from the GUI 'Compress' program that nemo runs. Never been a problem, all symlinks whether relative, absolute, pointing outside the archive, or even dead are saved and restored without issue.
However, I recently tried Linux Mint 22, and this no longer appears to be the case. The symlink handling is very broken (see my post https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=430258 )
Investigating, I found that Mint 22 is using a lot of much newer software that is in Debian (and also Ubuntu) which for 7z is around 16/17 whereas in Mint it is 23.
What is going on here? The tools on Mint seemed to be quite broken if there's any symlinks present, sometimes giving up completely, or sometimes producing an incomplete folder hierarchy.
Is this a known problem, and this is why 'professional' distributions like Debian/Ubuntu have held back updating these tools?
What is the future plan for these tools? I need to backup my symlinks for my development work-flow.

[sunrat]

Questions concerning Debian derivative distros such as Mint are dealt with in Off-Topic subforum. Topic moved.

[Makhnoa]

It's actually a question concerning Debian, and why the archiving tools are what they are, and what the future intentions of Debian are. Perfectly legitimate question. Mint and Ubuntu are referenced for what they seem to have done, why did you think I was aking about them?

[fabien]

To test future behaviour, you should test the version in unstable.
Note that p7zip-full is replaced by 7zip.
Bookworm:

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$> apt-file -x search "/bin/7z$"
p7zip-full: /usr/bin/7z

unstable:

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$> apt-file -x search "/bin/7z$"
7zip: /usr/bin/7z

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p7zip (16.02+transitional.1) unstable; urgency=low

  [ Robert Luberda ]
  * Make both p7zip and p7zip-full packages transitional ones depending
    on 7zip package (closes: #991428) in a version that provides all
    of the 7zr, 7za, 7z commands together with the p7zip wrapper script.
  * Switch the source package format to 3.0 (native), move the package
    to section oldlibs, and cleanup the packaging.

  [ Debian Janitor ]
  * Use secure URI in Homepage field.
  * Update standards version, no changes needed.

 -- Robert Luberda <robert@debian.org>  Wed, 10 Jan 2024 00:43:12 +0100

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Package: p7zip-full
Source: p7zip
Version: 16.02+transitional.1
Installed-Size: 12 kB
Maintainer: Robert Luberda <robert@debian.org>
Architecture: all
Depends     ▼
 7zip (>=23.01+dfsg-4~)
Description-en: transitional package
 This is a transitional package. It can be safely removed.
Homepage: https://7-zip.org/
Tag: admin::file-distribution, implemented-in::c++, interface::commandline,
 role::program, scope::utility, use::checking, use::compressing,
 works-with-format::tar, works-with-format::zip, works-with::archive,
 works-with::file
Section: utils
Priority: optional
Filename: pool/main/p/p7zip/p7zip-full_16.02+transitional.1_all.deb
Size: 2.6 kB


Package: p7zip
Version: 16.02+transitional.1
Installed-Size: 8.2 kB
Maintainer: Robert Luberda <robert@debian.org>
Architecture: all
Depends     ▼
 7zip (>=23.01+dfsg-4~)
Description-en: transitional package
 This is a transitional package. It can be safely removed.
Homepage: https://7-zip.org/
Tag: admin::file-distribution, implemented-in::c++, interface::commandline,
 role::program, scope::utility, use::compressing, works-with::archive,
 works-with::file
Section: utils
Priority: optional
Filename: pool/main/p/p7zip/p7zip_16.02+transitional.1_all.deb
Size: 2.4 kB


Package: 7zip
Version: 24.08+dfsg-1
Installed-Size: 7.1 MB
Maintainer: YOKOTA Hiroshi <yokota.hgml@gmail.com>
Architecture: amd64
Depends     ▼
 libc6 (>=2.34), libgcc-s1 (>=3.0), libstdc++6 (>=14)
Suggests    ▼
 7zip-standalone, 7zip-rar
Provides    ▼
 p7zip, p7zip-full
Replaces    ▼
 p7zip (<=16.02+dfsg-8), p7zip-full (<=16.02+dfsg-8)
Breaks      ▼
 p7zip (<=16.02+dfsg-8), p7zip-full (<=16.02+dfsg-8)
Description-en: 7-Zip file archiver with a high compression ratio
 7-Zip is a file archiver with a high compression ratio. The main features
 of 7-Zip are:
  * High compression ratio in 7z format with LZMA and LZMA2 compression
  * Supported formats:
      * Packing / unpacking: 7z, XZ, BZIP2, GZIP, TAR, ZIP and WIM
      * Unpacking only: AR, ARJ, CAB, CHM, CPIO, CramFS, DMG, EXT, FAT,
          GPT, HFS, IHEX, ISO, LZH, LZMA, MBR, MSI, NSIS, NTFS, QCOW2,
          RPM, SquashFS, UDF, UEFI, VDI, VHD, VMDK, WIM, XAR and Z.
  * For ZIP and GZIP formats, 7-Zip provides a compression ratio that is
      2-10 % better than the ratio provided by PKZip and WinZip
  * Strong AES-256 encryption in 7z and ZIP formats
  * Powerful command line version
 .
 "7zip" provides:
  * /usr/bin/7z:  Full featured with plugin functionality.
  * /usr/bin/7za: Major formats/features only.
  * /usr/bin/7zr: LZMA (.7z, .lzma, .xz) only. Minimal executable.
 .
 Note: The unRAR code was dropped to keep compatible with DFSG.
       Install 7zip-rar package in non-free section to use RAR files.
Homepage: https://www.7-zip.org/
Tag: implemented-in::c++, interface::commandline, role::program,
 scope::utility, use::compressing, works-with-format::TODO,
 works-with-format::chm, works-with-format::elf,
 works-with-format::iso9660, works-with-format::swf,
 works-with-format::tar, works-with-format::zip, works-with::archive
Section: utils
Priority: optional
Filename: pool/main/7/7zip/7zip_24.08+dfsg-1_amd64.deb
Size: 1.6 MB

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Package: p7zip	
etc:apt:mirrors debian.list bookworm main amd64    16.02+dfsg-8
deb.debian.org debian bullseye main amd64          16.02+dfsg-8
deb.debian.org debian testing main amd64           16.02+transitional.1
deb.debian.org debian unstable main amd64          16.02+transitional.1
fr.archive.ubuntu.com ubuntu noble universe amd64  16.02+transitional.1

Package: 7zip	
etc:apt:mirrors debian.list bookworm main amd64      22.01+dfsg-8
deb.debian.org debian bullseye-backports main amd64  22.01+dfsg-8~bpo11+1
deb.debian.org debian testing main amd64             24.08+dfsg-1
deb.debian.org debian unstable main amd64            24.08+dfsg-1
fr.archive.ubuntu.com ubuntu noble universe amd64    23.01+dfsg-11