Extract tar.gz, tar.bz2, zip, and other Compressed Files

If the file is owned by root, you may need to use sudo.

To extract a tgz, tar.gz, tbz, tar.bz2, or tar.xz file, open the terminal and type

cd directory
tar -xvf filename

bunzip2 filename.bz2

gunzip filename.gz

Note: Files such as tinycore.gz and microcore.gz are different. See below.

unrar x filename.rar

unlzma filename.xz

uncompress filename.Z

unzip filename.zip

7z x filename.7z

  .tgz is equivalent to .tar.gz
  .tbz and .tb2 are equivalent to .tar.bz2
  .taz is equivalent to .tar.Z
  .tlz is equivalent to .tar.lz
  .txz is equivalent to .tar.xz

To extract files such as tinycore.gz and microcore.gz, use

cd directory
zcat tinycore.gz | sudo cpio -i -H newc -d

For more information, see Remastering.

To extract a .deb file, use

cd directory
ar vx filename.deb
tar -xzvf data.tar.gz

Another option is to use

cd directory
ar p filename.deb data.tar.gz | tar xz

To extract an .rpm file, use

cd directory
rpm2cpio filename.rpm | cpio -vid