So, my very first Linux script: "untargz" goes something like this:

!/bin/bash 

gzip -d $1.tar.gz 

tar -xvf $1.tar 

there is probably a better way, but this made simple (KISS) sense to me.

Well, yeah, there is a better way to do that: use "tar -xvzf $1" instead of the gzip and tar lines (and pass the complete filename, be it .tar.gz or .tgz). This way, you aren't using up that much disk space for the temporary file. Or you could emulate the way "tar -xvzf " by doing "gzip -c -d $1 | tar -xvf -".

Something that would be much simpler and make more sense to me would be something like:

copy /mnt1 somehost/mnt2 --preserveall

Well, if you replace "copy" with "rcp" (for Remote CoPy), you basically get to that function. "scp" (for Secure (shell) Copy) from the ssh package would be better though, at least when you are doing it through an untrusted network.

Somehow the rather cryptic 'tar' trick reminds me of the clever fellow who wrote an entire multitasking OS in one line of recursive C code (100,000 chars long and impossible to read or debug).

First: The tar trick isn't that cryptic once you got used to the basic unix tools and to the idea of pipes. Second: I am almost 100% sure that guy was (a) a nerd and (b) using some tool to obfuscate his source. Third: Obfuscated C is next to nothing compared with obfuscated APL. There has been an obfuscated APL contest (target: the most obfuscated APL program that returned "42" and didn't contain more than one single digit which had to be "0" if used at all), where the winner was unable to even recognize his own code after the judges removed the commentary lines at the beginning of his program.

Ok, this should be all I ever wanted to say regarding your Q1. I will now try to answer as much of Q2 and following as I can (but I don't use Mark's cross-compiler, but a previous version which had different executable names for the tools).

Basically, I can only answer Q3 because of that:
Try building the beep.c source that I attached to this post. It is simple and produces an output that you can surely recognize: sends a beep out through the normal audio path (i.e. through the EQ, RCA, amp, speakers).

cu,
sven

Note: I did not write the beep.c program, but downloaded it from somewhere (probably. from the old developer site).