Intro

Intro

Pack, compress, and inspect archives for backup, distribution, and log history. Prefer tar with modern compressors (zstd, xz) for Linux trees; use zip when exchanging with non-Unix tools.

Commands in this part

Command	Role
tar	tar packs multiple files into one archive (and extracts them).
gzip	gzip compresses or decompresses files using the DEFLATE algorithm (.gz).
xz	xz compresses and decompresses files in the XZ format (LZMA2), typically yielding better ratios than gzip/bzip2 at…
bzip2	bzip2 compresses files with the Burrows–Wheeler algorithm (.bz2).
zstd	zstd (Zstandard) is a modern compression tool offering an excellent speed vs ratio curve, levels from very fast to…
zip	zip creates ZIP archives widely used for cross-platform interchange (Windows, macOS, Linux).
unzip	unzip lists, tests, and extracts ZIP archives.
zcat	zcat writes gzip-compressed files to stdout as if they were uncompressed (equivalent to gzip -dc).
zgrep	zgrep runs grep over gzip-compressed files without manual decompression.

Suggested starting points

1. Create/extract trees: tar (+ zstd/gzip/xz).
2. Single-file compressors: gzip, xz, bzip2, zstd.
3. Interchange with Windows/macOS users: zip / unzip.
4. Search rotated logs without unpacking: zgrep, zcat.

Related parts

• Files and paths — copy and verify before archiving
• Text and pipes — process extracted streams
• Networking — rsync/scp for transfer after packing

Continue with the individual command pages in this part.