Linux offers powerful utilities for archiving, where multiple files and directories are combined into a single file, primarily for backup and simplification of distribution. The main tools used for this purpose are tar, gzip, and bzip2.
The tar command, originally for tape archiving, is a versatile tool that can manage and organize files into one archive. Meanwhile, gzip and bzip2 are used for file compression, reducing the file size and making data transmission easier.
Take a look at the following commands in use:
# To create a tar archive:
tar cvf archive_name.tar directory_to_archive/
# To extract a tar archive:
tar xvf archive_name.tar
# To create a gzip compressed tar archive:
tar cvzf archive_name.tar.gz directory_to_archive/
#To create a bzip2 compressed tar archive:
tar cvjf archive_name.tar.bz2 directory_to_archive/
Remember, in Linux, archiving and compression are separate processes, hence tar to archive and gzip/bzip2 to compress. Although they're commonly used together, they can very much be used separately as per the requirements.
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