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If the file is named foo.tar use tar -xvf foo.tar
if is foo.tar.z or foo.tar.gz or foo.tar.tgz use tar -zxvf foo.tar
If your implementation of tar does not support the -z flag then you'll have to uncompress the files first use gunzip or gzip-d for .gz files, use uncompress for .z files and use unzip for .zip files, for tgz files gunzip should work. If fhe file is named foo.tar.bz2 or foo.tar.bz use bunzip or bunzip2 (whichever the ending is) as tar -z will not work on bzipped files. Hope this helps.
Well being a Linux newbie myself and still having many old Windows habits the first time I downloaded a tar file I just automatically double-clicked on it and it unzipped itself. I also found I can right click and accomplish the same thing. I have GnoZip installed which is supposed to be the WinZip for linux.
I hope nobody will run me off the forum for that confession!
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