Unpack

To unpack files under Linux, you need to know what file format your file is. Frequently used are the .zip, .tar and .tar.gz formats.

If you want to be sure about the file format, open a console and use the file command like this:

# file Blue-1.7.tar
Blue-1.7.tar: POSIX tar archive (GNU)

Here are file formats and how to unpack them:

extension	type	how to extract
.7z	7zip	install 7z, e.g. for SUSE Linux: yast -i p7zip; run it: 7z x file.7z
.bz2	bunzip2	bunzip2 file.bz2
.rar	rar	unrar x file.rar
.sda	?	unzip file.sda
.tar	tar archive	tar xvf file.tar
.tar.gz	gzipped tar archive	tar xvzf file.tar
.tgz	gzipped tar archive	tar xvzf file.tgz
.zip	zip archive	unzip file.zip
.zipx	new WinZip archive	See unpack .zipx files

See also

• open files