Ubuntu Wiki

Files can be compressed in a variety of formats. Some of these can be opened by Ubuntu automatically. Others can be handled if you install extra packages.

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Basic Archives

Anchor(basic)

• Many archives ( [#tar .tar],[#targz .tar.gz],[#zip .zip] ) Can easily be opened simply by using Archive Manager.

To open these formats, click on them with the right mouse button, and choose "Extract here". attachment:extracthere.jpg Double-clicking on them will open the Archive Manager for other tasks.

Non-archive formats

These formats are not technically archives, but can be opened by Archive Manager:

Deb installer packages (.deb)

• These are actually programs that need to be installed. Open a terminal and type sudo dpkg -i DEBNAME.deb. Warning: Installing programs from .debs can seriously damage your system.

CD Images (.iso)

• These are images to be burned on to a cd. See ["BurningIsoHowto"]

Java Archives (.jar)

• These are java programs. See ["Java"]

Firefox extensions (.xpi)

• These are actually extensions for Mozilla Firefox. To install them, launch Firefox and choose Open File from the File menu. Choose the .xpi file and click ok. Firefox will then install the extension. Warning: Installing certain extensions may damage your Firefox profile

Archive formats

7zip (.7z)

7zip is a new type of archive format. Install the package p7zip from the Universe repository (AddingRepositoriesHowto). You then need to tell Ubuntu how to deal with these files. Right-click on them and choose Properties. The 4th tab is Open With. Click on it and choose the Add button. Select the program Archive Manager. Then you can double click on the archive and extract it from within Archive manager

Ace (.ace)

The [http://www.winace.com/cgi-bin/getfile.exe?program=LinUnAce&width=628 unace] utility is used for extracting, testing and viewing the contents of archives created with the ACE archiver. To add support for it, install unace from the universe repository (AddingRepositoriesHowto). To extract .ace files, you need to use the commandline:

unace x file.ace

Rar (.rar)

Rar is a non-free archive format created by Rarsoft. There are several versions of rar and the newest version, 3.0, is not supported by any free tools. To add support for it, install unrar-nonfree (unrar in Breezy Badger) from the multiverse repository (AddingRepositoriesHowto). Non-password protected Rars can then be opened by right clicking on them and choosing "Extract here" or double-clicking them to open in Archive Manager.

Password protected .rar files

To open a password protected Rar file, open the terminal and type unrar -e RARFILENAME.rar. It will then prompt you for the password.

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GNU Tar (.tar)

The tar archive is an old archive format made for tapes which consist of files added to a single file, one after the other.

This can be extracted using [#basic Package Manager] or on the command line using: Example: file.tar.gz

tar xvf file.tar.gz

This will show you what it extracts, and in most cases will be in a sub directory of file Anchor(targz)

GNU Tar GZ (.tar.gz .tgz)

This archive is a [#tar tar] archive, which has then been zipped using 'gzip' which is an open source zip utility.

This can be extracted using [#basic Package Manager] or on the command line using: Example: file.tar.gz

tar zxvf file.tar.gz

This will show you what it extracts, and in most cases will be in a sub directory of file

You can create these files in the [#basic Package Manager] or you can make them on the command line like so:

tar zcvf file.tar.gz dir1 dir2 ...

file.tar.gz is the name of the tar file we wish to create and dir1 dir2 are the names of the directories and/or files we wish to include in the tar.gz archive. Anchor(tarbz2)

GNU Tar bzip2 (.tar.bz2)

This archive is a [#tar tar] archive, which has then been zipped using 'bzip2' which is an open source zip utility which results in smaller file sizes than [#targz gzip] however uses more processing power.

This can be extracted using [#basic Package Manager] or on the command line using: Example: file.tar.bz2

tar jxvf file.tar.bz2

This will show you what it extracts, and in most cases will be in a sub directory of file

You can create these files in the [#basic Package Manager] or you can make them on the command line like so:

tar jcvf file.tar.bz2 dir1 dir2 ...

file.tar.bz2 is the name of the tar file we wish to create and dir1 dir2 are the names of the directories and/or files we wish to include in the tar.bz2 archive. Anchor(zip)

Zip (.zip)

This is an older archive (and compression) format that originates with PKZip developed by Phil Katz in 1989. It has been in use with DOS and windows for many years.

This can be extracted using [#basic Package Manager] or on the command line using: Example: file.zip

unzip file.zip

You can create these files in the [#basic Package Manager] or you can make them on the command line like so:

zip file.zip dir1 dir2 ...

file.zip is the name of the zip file we wish to create and dir1 dir2 are the names of the directories and/or files we wish to include in the zip archive.

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