tar and gzip - how do i point to a output directory
 

I want to run tar with the xvzf options on a .tgz file - but is there any way to do this from some directory A and have the unzipped files be placed in another directory B ? Im too lazy to move the file then run tar :D

How about consulting man page for tar?

let's say you have the tar file

/home/redhat123/package.tar.gz

and you want to extract it to

/tmp/source/

You can use this command to extract the contents of the tar file to /tmp/source:

tar -C /tmp/source -xzvf /home/redhat123/package.tar.gz

watch out for the spaces and syntax. If you want a GUI, you can ark (in RHL it is present, i dunno about other distros):

ark package.tar.gz

And you can just drag and drop to a directory.

cd to whatever directory you want the archive to be placed in. Then run your command pointing to the proper file. The archive will be untarred into the working (current) directory.

-C parameter for tar
 

If the archive doesn't support the -C you'll get... "File -C not present in the archive"! You won't be able to add an output local for the un-tar operation.