It was a quick hack. And I don't ignore the control archive since it can contain scripts that do important steps.

For the next step, I'd teach this script to extract one named file to stdout and write another script that used it to perform the common steps (thus saving disk space, which is often in short supply on a Zaurus):

• List non-directories in either archive
• Pipe all control files to 'more'
• Extract the data (or control) archive 'here'
• Become root and extract data to / or /home
• Extract a named file from data archive to 'here' or (as root) to named directory

But instead I'm ordering a CF RAM card so I can switch to the OpenZaurus ROM.