tar supports bzip2 as well, it is usually -I or -j (depends on which version of tar).
eg: "tar jxvf archive.tar.bz2" or "tar jcvf archive.tar.bz2 /some/dir/" ----- Original Message ----- From: "David Zanetti" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Peter Cornelius" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Cc: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Tuesday, July 23, 2002 1:21 PM Subject: Re: Help! > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > Hash: SHA1 > > On Tue, 23 Jul 2002, Peter Cornelius wrote: > > > As a Mandrake newbie from Saturday I believe the first thing I need to do > > is to come to terms with some of the new expressions, commands and > > abbreviations. I was advised from whence to download some documentation. > > The downloaded file came with a .gz extension, which had I the > > documentation (!) might have told me was a zip file. > > A .gz is not, in an of itself, an archive in the same way a zip file is. > It's simply a compressed file, in that case using gzip. The same is true > of files ending in ".bz2", in that case bzip2 (again.. just compression). > > In many cases, the "archive" part will be a tar. So you need two tools to > unpack a file with a ".tar.gz" extension - g[un]zip and tar. Thankfully, > recent versions of GNU tar has gzip support, using the z switch. If it was > a .bz2, then you'd have to involve both tools. > > For example, if I have the file "mystuff.tar.gz", I use: > > tar zxvf mystuff.tar.gz > > to decompress and unpack the contents. That only works with GNU tar, > whereas: > > gzip -cd mystuff.tar.gz | tar xvf - > > works on any *nix. In this case, I'm decompressing the file (-d on gzip or > I could use gunzip instead and skip the -d), piping the resulting > decompressed output into tar (-c tells gzip to output to stdout, the pipe > charater connects stdout to stdin of tar), and telling tar to extract it > (x for extract, v for verbose, f for file, and the filename is "-", which > means stdin). > > If it was a .bz2 file, you'd have to do a similar thing, since only very > new versions of GNU tar support bz2 internally: > > bzip2 -cd mystuff.tar.bz2 | tar xvf - > > If they do, you can reduce this down to: > > tar jxvf mystuff.tar.bz2 > > but the net effect is the same. > > Clear as mud? Happy to clarify anything. > > - -- > "I know of no technological device at this time that would [prevent > priracy] and if it did exist, it would only be a matter of days before the > [..] manufacturers would have an override piece of equipment on their > machine and you would start from ground zero again." > -- Jack Valenti, President of the MPAA (1982) > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- > Version: GnuPG v1.0.6 (GNU/Linux) > Comment: Made with pgp4pine 1.75-6 > > iD8DBQE9PK+DT21+qRy4P+QRArh0AKDu49zQdvDC0iolkvxlvOyyz3AEkACfRqH7 > SM/ctHvdf45ek/aXDZ4Qqc0= > =czQJ > -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- > > >
