Decompression of various file formats

Here are some common compression formats and how to decompress them:

Name: gzip
File Extension: .gz, .z
Command: gzip -d file.gz

Name: bzip2
File Extension: .bz2
Command: bzip2 -d file.bz2

Name: tar
File Extension: .tar
Command: tar xvf file.tar

Name: tar + compress
File Extension: .tar.Z, .tar-z, .taz
Command: zcat file.tar.Z | tar xvf file.tar.Z

Name: tar + gzip
File Extension: .tar.gz, tar.z, .tgz
Command: gzip -cd file.tar.gz | tar xvf -

Name: compress for Unix
File Extension: .Z
Command: uncompress file.Z

Name: zip
File Extension: .zip
Command: unzip file.zip

Unsupported formats: .rar

For more information, check out the Compression FAQ

For further details, see:

• man gzip
• man bzip2
• man tar
• man zcat
• man uncompress
• man zip
• man unzip