farfary one last thing for the tar replacement just do: cp -R /path/to/downloaded/tar /bin/ chmod 775 /bin/tar rm /bin/tar hence not required... it will ensure people are less scared to try this out Edit: why don't you package the new tar together with your backdeb with a cp -R command in your package? that would save the cp -R step...actually i think you can add a Makefile that does this as well as chmod 775's both backdeb and tar so then a user just installs your package and is good to go...