tar -zxvf filename.tar.gz(=tape archiver) Untar a tarred and compressed tarball (*.tar.gz or *.tgz) that you downloaded from the Internet.
tar -xvf filename.tarUntar a tarred but uncompressed tarball (*.tar).
gunzip filename.gzDecompress a zipped file (*.gz" or *.z). Use gzip (also zip or compress) if you wanted to compress files to this file format.
bunzip2 filename.bz2(=big unzip) Decompress a file (*.bz2) zipped with bzip2 compression utility. Used for big files.
unzip filename.zipDecompress a file (*.zip) zipped with a compression utility compatible with PKZIP for DOS.
unarj e filename.arjExtract the content of an *.arj archive.
uudecode -o outputfile filenameDecode a file encoded with uuencode. uu-encoded files are typically used for transfer of non-text files in e-mail (uuencode transforms any file into an ASCII file).
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