The tar command on Linux is very useful for uncompressing files on your Linux machine. The most used command on a Linux system is uncompressing files that you have downloaded from an Internet source.
The tar -xvf command will uncompress a tar.gz file.
~$ tar -xvf myfile.tar.gz |
To uncompress a tar.bz2 file use this command.
~$ tar -jxvf myfile.tar.bz2 |
Here is an example.
mint@mint ~/Downloads $ tar -jxvf libdvdcss-1.2.13.tar.bz2 libdvdcss-1.2.13/ libdvdcss-1.2.13/src/ libdvdcss-1.2.13/src/dvdcss/ libdvdcss-1.2.13/src/dvdcss/dvdcss.h libdvdcss-1.2.13/src/libdvdcss.pc.in libdvdcss-1.2.13/src/device.c libdvdcss-1.2.13/src/error.c libdvdcss-1.2.13/src/ioctl.h libdvdcss-1.2.13/src/device.h libdvdcss-1.2.13/src/css.h libdvdcss-1.2.13/src/common.h libdvdcss-1.2.13/src/csstables.h libdvdcss-1.2.13/src/ioctl.c libdvdcss-1.2.13/src/libdvdcss.c libdvdcss-1.2.13/src/libdvdcss.h libdvdcss-1.2.13/src/css.c libdvdcss-1.2.13/README libdvdcss-1.2.13/aclocal.m4 libdvdcss-1.2.13/configure libdvdcss-1.2.13/config.h.in libdvdcss-1.2.13/depcomp libdvdcss-1.2.13/test/ libdvdcss-1.2.13/test/dvd_region.c libdvdcss-1.2.13/test/csstest.c libdvdcss-1.2.13/config.sub libdvdcss-1.2.13/config.guess libdvdcss-1.2.13/AUTHORS libdvdcss-1.2.13/libdvdcss.spec libdvdcss-1.2.13/NEWS libdvdcss-1.2.13/Makefile.am libdvdcss-1.2.13/doc/ libdvdcss-1.2.13/doc/doxygen.cfg.in libdvdcss-1.2.13/doc/footer.html libdvdcss-1.2.13/doc/header.html libdvdcss-1.2.13/COPYING libdvdcss-1.2.13/INSTALL libdvdcss-1.2.13/configure.ac libdvdcss-1.2.13/ChangeLog libdvdcss-1.2.13/missing libdvdcss-1.2.13/m4/ libdvdcss-1.2.13/m4/ltsugar.m4 libdvdcss-1.2.13/m4/lt~obsolete.m4 libdvdcss-1.2.13/m4/libtool.m4 libdvdcss-1.2.13/m4/attributes.m4 libdvdcss-1.2.13/m4/ltversion.m4 libdvdcss-1.2.13/m4/ltoptions.m4 libdvdcss-1.2.13/install-sh libdvdcss-1.2.13/ltmain.sh libdvdcss-1.2.13/Makefile.in libdvdcss-1.2.13/msvc/ libdvdcss-1.2.13/msvc/libdvdcss.dsp libdvdcss-1.2.13/msvc/workspace.dsw libdvdcss-1.2.13/msvc/csstest.dsp libdvdcss-1.2.13/msvc/config.h |
To create a tar.gz archive of a directory and its contents, use this command: tar -zcvf archive.tar.gz dir/
mint@mint ~/Downloads $ tar -zcvf mine.tar.gz mine/ mine/ mine/mylist.txt mine/my.txt |
To uncompress to a specific directory, use the uncompress command with the -C parameter. Here I am uncompressing the archive to /tmp.
mint@mint ~/Downloads $ tar -xvf mine.tar.gz -C /tmp/ mine/ mine/mylist.txt mine/my.txt |
To list the contents of a tar.gz file; use this command.
mint@mint ~/Downloads $ tar -tvf mine.tar.gz drwxr-xr-x mint/mint 0 2014-02-18 01:24 mine/ -rw-r--r-- mint/mint 8552 2014-02-18 01:24 mine/mylist.txt -rw-r--r-- mint/mint 0 2014-02-18 01:24 mine/my.txt |
For a tar.bz2 file; you would use this command.
mint@mint ~/Downloads $ tar -jtvf mine.tar.bz2 drwxr-xr-x mint/mint 0 2014-02-18 01:24 mine/ -rw-r--r-- mint/mint 8552 2014-02-18 01:24 mine/mylist.txt -rw-r--r-- mint/mint 0 2014-02-18 01:24 mine/my.txt |