A close look at archives and compression algorithms in Linux
Most of us are familiar with zipping and unzipping a folder, usually on a Windows system. Linux also supports file compressions but offers so much more than this.
Archives and compressed files are really useful whenever you want to send someone a folder via email, download a game online or creating a backup of some important files.
In this article, we’ll explore Linux commands such as tar, gzip, bzip2, and xz. Mastering these commands will expand your knowledge and help you become a more proficient Linux user.
The first important concept we’ll talk about is archives.
On Linux systems, archives and file compressions are two different concepts. Archiving doesn’t aim to reduce file size; instead, it’s intended to organize multiple files from various locations on the hard drive into a single, orderly file.
A long time ago, archives were a great way to quickly back up the entire computer on a tape (yeah, I know, tapes!). The same idea is still applied today, but instead of creating a “tape archive” (hence the name tar), a file is created instead.
You can create your own archive by using the command:
