What am I supposed to do with a file like foo.tar.gz?
Typically you run the following commands in the same directory as the
file:
gzip -d foo.tar.gz
tar xvf foo.tar
The first command uncompresses the file. Before running the
second command you may want to run the following to see what
it is that you are unpacking:
tar tvf foo.tar
The "tar xvf..." command unpacks the file. If the file
contained
absolute paths, then the files may have been unpacked to various
locations on you system. If the file contained relative paths,
then the files will be in the current directory, and possibly
in subdirectories.
What is gzip?
GZip is an OpenSource compression/decompression program.
What is tar?
Tar is the Unix "Tape ARchive" program. It is used for
combining
multiple files into a single file.
Where can I get these programs?
If you work in a Unix environment, you already have them.
For Microsoft OS users, you can get ports of these programs from various
sources. Cygnus used to (and probably still does) distribute Win32 ports of nice Unix
utilities, but they have been purchased by Red Hat,
and their products are either non-existent today, or they are well hidden.
Here are Win32 ports of these files that probably came from Cygnus
originally (I lost track):
tar.exe (53760 bytes)
gzip.exe (67584 bytes)
win32gnu.dll (104448 bytes)
