I have actually already done it once correctly; the new file showed up right next to the tar.bz2 file. I clicked on the extracted icon and it ran perfectly.

The next day after I had shut off my system, the extracted icon was gone and I have yet to reproduce the command that, in one step, extracted the tar.bz2 file and placed it in the same folder as the tar.bz2 file.

I've reviewed the help pages that I was using to come up with the working command but have not been able to duplicate that one magic line.

I left-click on the opened folder and then type the command line which shows up at the bottom of the window. I then press "Enter" and that's when it all happened instantly.

I do know how to open a terminal window but did not use it in this case.

Why the extracted icon disappeared, I have no clue.

tar -xvf filename.tar.bz2

Thank you for your answer. However, it did not work for me. I left-clicked in the folder where the file was and entered the line as you instructed but I got no response from it.

This is very bizarre and frustrating because I did experience before entering a line command that was very similar to the one that you gave me, but I cannot remember it nor reconstruct it. It may have begun with "bunzip2" but I could be wrong.

I have tried also double-clicking on the file but it then gave me a folder and an .exe file; neither of which did anything: not opening or executing.

Any ideas as to why this should be giving me such a hard time? It should be simple but I don't know very much at all about Linux.

Try opening a terminal, then navigating to the directory where the file resides, and entering the command from the command line:

That particular set of arguments (xvf) of the command tells tar to inspect the file and choose the appropriate decompression command. See man tar for more.

The solution was staring me in the face all the while. My Google searches brought up using WINzip or WINrar in Windows. So I booted my system back into Windows, installed WINrar, and had the file in hand in nothing flat. Then I booted back into Manjaro Linux and ran the program immediately. So, for once, Windows was good for something. Now I just need to get back to the Monero GUI wallet forums and find out why the program still doesn't quite work as it should; they are the ones who seemed to indicate that my problem was running the program in Windows.

I thought tar jxvf was for bz2.

it is xjvpf.

$ tar -xjvpf file.tar.bz2

You might also need to install the bzip2 package depending on what distro and how you installed it. With xJvpf for .xz files. And xzvpf for .tar.gz. Plus non-tar routes via gunzip, bunzip, 7z and such.

$ man tar

Where the v and p are optional flags. verbose and preserve permissions or some such. The p is probably more useful in tar creation, but I just always have it there, old habits and such.

you only had to reboot twice! i agree, that is about the only thing windows is good for.
opening a terminal and typing out POSIX commands would have been a lot more hassle.
no, windows is definitely much better in preserving UNIX tradition, than Linux.