What is gz file?
Remember the old compressed zip files, gz files are similar to that. gz is also a file format for creating compressed files using the GNU zip compression algorithm also known as gzip. A good thing about this approach is that gzip compression is lossless, hence, the data is not lost during compression and this makes it ideal for packaging software on Linux so that their sizes can be reduced for lower network loads, that too without any data loss. It uses the Lempel-Ziv encoding (LZ77) algorithm for compression.
However, gzip does have one drawback it can’t really compress multiple files at once, so we need to use gzip along with tar if we want to compress multiple files.
How to Unzip (Open) Gz File
If you have been using Linux for some time, you must have come across a “gz” file. Have you ever wondered, what is it and how do you actually open it?
Worry not, in this article, we deep dive into the details of gz file and help you overcome your doubts about it.
Table of Content
- What is gz file?
- How to open gz file
- Method 1: Using the gzip command
- Method 2 : Using graphical archive manager
- Method 3 : Using gunzip command
- Method 4 : Using tar command [ONLY for compression in the tar.gz format]