The standard archival program for Unix-like operating systems including Linux and Mac OS X is Tar, so called because Tar was originally used to store backups on tape drives (Tape ARchive).

In this how-to, we will look at how to work with tar archives via the terminal, including two of the most popular compression methods to squeeze every last byte of space.

One of the most common programs on Linux systems for packaging files is the venerable tar. tar is short for tape archive, and originally, it would archive your files to a tape device. Now, you're more ...