54. About Archiving Files

You can take files and folders and archive them into a single, compressed file. This is useful in cases where you want to carry a bunch of files on removable media with limited disk space, want to prepare older files for backup, or want to send files via email or upload to a website.

Archive files are created with the File Roller application. File Roller also has the capability to extract files from archives, which can be useful in cases where you download Linux applets or other items from the Web that have been saved as an archive. Any number of folders and files can be saved in an archive file.

File Roller allows you to create (and open) archives in different formats. Some of the common (more are supported) file formats are

• arj A compressed file type (.arj) using the ARJ32 archive program.

• java A java compressed file format (.jar) created using the jar command.

• lha A compressed archive format (.lha) created using the LHA archive command.

  File Roller can create new archive files and open existing archive files to be extracted.

  

• tar An archive file type (.tar) created and unwrapped using the UNIX tar command.

• tar compressed tar files can be compressed and are found in file formats such as tar.bz, tar.gz, and tar.tzo depending on the compression tool used to compress the tar archive.

• zip A compressed file format that can be saved as a .zip file or as an unzipping executable file. This is a popular archive file format in the DOS/Windows environment.

The most common file archive that you will run up against is probably the tar.gz file format. It is commonly used to archive and compress Linux applets and utilities that can be downloaded and installed on your system. It is also a good bet when creating your own archive files because it provides a good amount of compression for the archive file itself.

Tip

You can quickly create a tar.gz archive from the Nautilus window. Select folders and files and then select Edit, Create Archive. Name the archive and then click Create.