so what's the deal with rar ?

[dbbolton]

does anyone else get annoyed with rar archives ?

why are these used when free and more widely-used formats exist, like .zip (especially on windows) or .tar.gz ?

[SunnyRabbiera]

I dont mind rar, but they do get redundant.

[Quillz]

Because .zip is utter crap. The reason .rar is used is because it has the best compression around. Compare a .zip archive to a .rar archive. You'll see how much better the latter is in terms of compression. I have heard that .7z is comparable to .rar, but I don't think so.

[SunnyRabbiera]

but rar is not open source and under linux we cant go past 2.0 type archives...

[Engnome]

I like the splitting feature, used a lot in the more serious p2p sites. Not that I would know anything about that of course :-\"

[dbbolton]

Because .zip is utter crap. The reason .rar is used is because it has the best compression around. Compare a .zip archive to a .rar archive. You'll see how much better the latter is in terms of compression. I have heard that .7z is comparable to .rar, but I don't think so.
well, by the same token, one could contend that a lot of non-free software is "better." but, i would rather use free, less effective archive formats (imho)

[qpieus]

Engnome hit on the reason rar took off in popularity many years ago IMO - its file splitting ability was great for the warez/file sharing scenes. When rar first came about, it could split files and zip could not. For posting large files to usenet (back before broadband internet connections for the masses), this file splitting feature was very valuable. Compression was a little better than zip also.

[Quillz]

well, by the same token, one could contend that a lot of non-free software is "better." but, i would rather use free, less effective archive formats (imho)
Well, I do think a lot of closed-source software is better than its open-source counterpart, but not all of it. But as far as I'm concerned, .rar is the way to go until something open source such as .7z is able to have comparable features.

[maniacmusician]

Because .zip is utter crap. The reason .rar is used is because it has the best compression around. Compare a .zip archive to a .rar archive. You'll see how much better the latter is in terms of compression. I have heard that .7z is comparable to .rar, but I don't think so.
Pretty sure that 7z compression is better than RAR?

It's just not widely used. Also, a lot of formats don't have file-splitting. I'm sure some open-source ones do.

[Quillz]

Pretty sure that 7z compression is better than RAR?

It's just not widely used. Also, a lot of formats don't have file-splitting. I'm sure some open-source ones do.
Yes, I think .7z does have file splitting. This is probably the best format to compete with .rar, but it needs a higher user base and some more work. But .zip has been inferior for years now... Something really needs to replace it for good.

[SunnyRabbiera]

Well, I do think a lot of closed-source software is better than its open-source counterpart, but not all of it. But as far as I'm concerned, .rar is the way to go until something open source such as .7z is able to have comparable features.

yeh but using a shareware product is not my idea of fun when concerning post rar 2.0 files...
and I am not in the mood to fork over $21...

[karellen]

.rar has the best compression rate. tha vast majority of the users doesn't care if it's open source or not

[PatrickMay16]

rar compresses better than bzip2/gzip in many cases. So I often make a tar archive, and put that in a rar archive. The compression is usually more than a tar.gz or a tar.bz2.

http://img57.imageshack.us/img57/3625/johnstonsc7.png

For my backups, rather than bzip2 and gzip, I use rar and 7z because they compress much better.

[Rhubarb]

.rar has the best compression rate. tha vast majority of the users doesn't care if it's open source or not

So how come 7zip can compress Firefox and Google Earth into a smaller archive than WinRar?

http://www.7-zip.org/
(At the bottom of the page)

7zip allows you to open up an awful lot of different archive types, supports file splitting (which IMO is needlessly over used in some dark corners of the net), executable archives, and multithreading.
32bit and 64bit versions are available.

Why WinRar? Why Shareware?
A: I don't know why so many people just haven't heard of 7zip.

It's a pity 7zip isn't supported (as much as .tar.bz(2)) in GNU / Linux.

[SunnyRabbiera]

still to scarf out money to some greedy software pantent loving company doesnt help.
there needs to be a middle ground.

[qpwoeiruty]

Didn't WinRAR give away v3.51 a while back? What's wrong with DLing RAR 3.51 for Linux and using that key to register it?

[WalmartSniperLX]

I personally like 7z for compression matters but when I make my own archives I find myself using rar if I have to, and zip ONLY if im sending something to someone that I know dont have the ability to decompress rar, and dont know how to obtain the tools to do it. Thats all I have to say :)

Also my friend ran tests on 7z and I did too. I noticed it compressed to smaller sizes that rar... and thats all I care about :lolflag:

[Quillz]

still to scarf out money to some greedy software pantent loving company doesnt help.
there needs to be a middle ground.
WinRAR isn't really a company... It's just one guy. And I really don't think he's greedy, patent loving... He created the best compression utility , he deserves some money from it.

[maniacmusician]

still to scarf out money to some greedy software pantent loving company doesnt help.
there needs to be a middle ground.
Yeah. 7zip. It clearly humiliates all the other formats (as pointed out by patrick's screenshot) and it's open source.

[qpwoeiruty]

And 7zip is very slow and a memory hog (compression and extraction) compared to other compression utilities...

[Rhubarb]

And 7zip is very slow and a memory hog (compression and extraction) compared to other compression utilities...

You can adjust the dictionary size for creating an archive, so you can trade off speed for compression if you wish.

[FoolsGold]

When I was running Windows I used .RAR almost exclusively, it was just sooooo much better than the pathetic compression of .ZIP. Then again, I used a cracked version of WinRAR so I didn't give a damn about cost.

When I moved to Linux I wanted to reduce my dependancy on cracked/warez products, but I still wanted to be able to unpack .RAR files. So, I use unrar pretty easily without cost. I have yet to encounter a .RAR file that cannot be accessed in Linux.

Unfortunately we cannot exist in a bubble; if other people want to use .RAR files (eg. Usenet), so be it. I still will use the command-line rar software to access said files, and I don't see the harm.


EDIT: To me, it makes the same sense to get annoyed with .wmv files. Boo hoo, the world uses them, and I want to view them, so I install the necessary codecs and get on with it. Idealism will only get you so far.

[qpwoeiruty]

You can adjust the dictionary size for creating an archive, so you can trade off speed for compression if you wish.

If you do that, you throw out the reason why 7zip is superior to the other formats.

IMO, it works out to this:
7zip: Very sparingly used on any platform, very slow for good compression, very good compression
rar: More prevalent on Windows systems, newest versions nonfree,moderate compression speed, moderate compression
zip: All over the place, good compression speed, poor compression
tar & bzip2 or gzip: More prevalent on Linux systems, good compression speed, moderate compression

rar is a good middleground since it's easy enough for most users to decompress. Windows users will complain if you give them a tar.gz or tar.bz2. Most people don't know what to do with .7z files and even if they do, decompression is often also painfully slow. zip is by far the most widely used but the compression is horrid.

As for rar-nonfree, I think I'll try 3.51 and using the PCA key they gave out and see how that goes...

Ed: And now I have a fully working, registered rar 3.51

[Rhapsody]

Here's my take on the compression formats.

Zip

FOSS extraction: Yes
FOSS archiving: Yes
Compression ratio: Low
Software support: Very high
Description: Zip is one of the oldest and most well-known formats. It's not very flexible or very good at compression, but support (though the permissively licensed zlib) is near universal across operating systems and platforms. It's a very good 'baseline' format, but there are better formats for compression or archiving.

RAR

FOSS extraction: Limited, only up to RAR 2.0
FOSS archiving: No
Compression ratio: High
Software support: Medium
Description: RAR is the most well-known competitor to Zip. It has the advantages of being more flexible and having much better compression than Zip, but archiving and (generally) extraction require code under proprietary licensing conditions, making it somewhat unpopular among users for FOSS operating systems.

gzip

FOSS extraction: Yes
FOSS archiving: Yes
Compression ratio: Low
Software support: High
Description: Essentially, gzip is very similar to Zip. It has about the same compression ratio and compression speed. The main difference is that gzip is normally used in a tar container, giving it flexibility more similar to RAR. With the relatively high software support and the fact that it's an open standard, it'd seem like the perfect replacement for Zip, but it hasn't caught on much outside of the Linux world.

bzip2

FOSS extraction: Yes
FOSS archiving: Yes
Compression ratio: Medium-high
Software support: Medium-high
Description: bzip2 is typically used in a tar container (like gzip) and thus has about the same level of flexibility. The big difference between the two is that bzip2 has a much higher compression ratio (not far off RAR) making it a good choice for FOSS users who want better compression. Like gzip though, it hasn't caught on much outside of the Linux world despite being an open standard with good support. Incidentally, bzip (the predecessor to bzip2) actually had better compression as it used arithmetic coding rather than Huffman coding, but this had to be changed due to arithmetic coding being rather patent-encumbered (a situation which looks set to continue for some time).

7z

FOSS extraction: Yes
FOSS archiving: Yes
Compression ratio: Very high
Software support: Medium
Description: 7z is a relative newcomer, but has quickly gained support due to an excellent compression ratio (generally even higher than RAR), plenty of features, and the fact that everything related to it is licensed under the relatively permissive LGPL. With the file format being stable now and software support fairly good, it looks like 7z could be the compression format to topple RAR someday.

Personally, I tend to use gzip or bzip2 for my compression needs. I don't like people using RAR, as it seems rather unnecessary these days. 7z is better if you really need high compression, but why do most people even need such compression? Hard drive space is cheap and abundant these days, and broadband internet connections are hardly more expensive. If you're transferring data on a peer-to-peer basis, gzip should be all you need.

[XVampireX]

7z is superior to rar and every other archiving format, hands down.

[euler_fan]

Rhapsody,

Thanks for the very informative summary. I think I may end up doing more in .bzip2 now as opposed to just .zip and tar.gz.

[Polygon]

in windows... WinRAR is shareware, adn its supposted to expire after a certain amount of time i think but it never expires on my computer (using a non cracked version too)... so im like whatever.

And the compression ratio really has to do with the file you are trying to compress... certain types of files compress very very very well, while others (movies for one) dont compress well at all.

I will have to check out 7z, didnt know it was better at compressing then RAR

and also a question, does any other format besides RAR support passworded archives?

[Quillz]

I thought you could password a ZIP archive, but I'm probably wrong.

[BLTicklemonster]

Huh. In the overall scheme of things, I never ever worried about having to shave X amount of megs off of a file, so I never gave a flying rat's patootie about it. It just always pissed me off that I had zip already and everyone else was using 4 different varieties of compression, touting the compression characteristics. And I'd be like, "Dude, I'd already have uncompressed this bad boy if you weren't so 1337. Now I got to go download something. Thanks." Compression aside, the fastest version is the version everyone has.

[Iandefor]

Just to see if .rar really is more efficient, I compressed the Canterbury Corpus (http://corpus.canterbury.ac.nz/index.html) (normally 2.7 MB) with rar with the option -m5 (best compression), rar with normal compression, bzip2 (after making a tar archive of it because of bzip2's behaviour), zip with the option -9, zip with normal compression, and 7zip.

After throwing all the compressed archives in a directory and runningls -lS | awk '{print $5, $8}' Which lists the size of a file in bytes and then the filename, and sorts the files in descending order by size, I get 977243 canterbury.7z
735262 canterbury.zip
732225 canterbury.9.zip
570856 cantrbry.tar.bz2
517862 canterbury.normal.rar
414371 canterbury.m5.rar 7zip did the most poorly (which makes me wonder if I didn't commit a methodological error, since that contradicts most people's reports here), and rar did the best. Zip produced the least noticeable differences in compression between the normal setting and the best setting.

[zugu]

I noticed some people in this thread stating that WinRAR has the highest compression rate.

This is completely incorrect. While WinRAR is awesome for compressing text files, try compressing multimedia with it and you'll see that the space gain for a 700 MB video file is around 1 or 2 MB.

People use RAR because:
- it can split files in as many parts as one desires;
- it can password-protect archives using a quite secure algorithm (as a bonus it can encrypt the list of files inside the archive);
- it is reasonably lightweight;
- it was among the first of its kind to offer a nearly perfect Windows shell integration;
- it can work in background
- it provides a method for creating self-extracting archives

However, WinRAR is NOT the most powerful compressor around. For an example of better compression, google for "UHARC". It is a small little command line utility that has outstanding results when used to compress multimedia/binaries (it was used on the warez "Scene" until RAR got the cake - imagine three full games on a single 650 MB CD).

The supreme argument for the popularity of WinRAR is that while not very performant, it has managed to achieve a good balance between compression ratio and the existing processing power. Add usability, price, and all the other factors that can define a product. Others have built exact clones of WinRAR but the market inertia was already in progress.

OTOH, guys who need monstrous compression ratios won't ever use 7-zip, WinRAR or similar.

See http://www.maximumcompression.com for information on compressing utilities and related performance.

[Rhubarb]

... and also a question, does any other format besides RAR support passworded archives?

Yes, I know for sure regular zip supports passworded archives, and so does 7-zip.
In 7-zip you can assign a password on individual files in the archive, or assign a password on the whole lot (so you can't even see what files are in the archive).

Thanks for posting the nice link there zugu.

[Rhapsody]

7zip did the most poorly (which makes me wonder if I didn't commit a methodological error, since that contradicts most people's reports here), and rar did the best. Zip produced the least noticeable differences in compression between the normal setting and the best setting.

I tried the same file with p7zip (7z a -t7z -mx=9) and managed to get it down to 483952 bytes, which is more what I'd be expecting.

[John Bennett]

See http://www.maximumcompression.com for information on compressing utilities and related performance.

Cool link. Thank you zugu.

[nycste]

I tried the same file with p7zip (7z a -t7z -mx=9) and managed to get it down to 483952 bytes, which is more what I'd be expecting.

maybe some of you can point me in direction of the readme or help file of p7zip

or the commands to compress files and password them

[ice60]

the winrar icon looks really cool, winrar is a nice program on windows, plus winrar is just about the easiest program to steal, or you can use it without even having a licence i think. those are the reasons i think rar does so well! check out these cool looking icons :D
http://images.google.com/images?q=winrar&hl=en

when comparing compression ratios between different formats i think you have to test lots of different files to see how they perform, rather then trying them out on one file.

the guy from peazip posts here with his updates, a couple of years a go i remember reading that it should become a great program, i haven't really tried it out yet though!
http://peazip.sourceforge.net/

[nick09]

Yes the trial does run out but they just annoy you with messages saying "update to this such and such". Easy to ignore really and I installed 3.71 windows on my Linux system(wine).

[nycste]

the winrar icon looks really cool, winrar is a nice program on windows, plus winrar is just about the easiest program to steal, or you can use it without even having a licence i think. those are the reasons i think rar does so well! check out these cool looking icons :D
http://images.google.com/images?q=winrar&hl=en

when comparing compression ratios between different formats i think you have to test lots of different files to see how they perform, rather then trying them out on one file.

the guy from peazip posts here with his updates, a couple of years a go i remember reading that it should become a great program, i haven't really tried it out yet though!
http://peazip.sourceforge.net/

thanks umm am i using gtk1 or gtk2 lol i have no idea thanks
ubuntu 8.04

[ice60]

thanks umm am i using gtk1 or gtk2 lol i have no idea thanks
ubuntu 8.04
are you talking about peazip? definitely gtk2 :) you can try in synaptic too, it might be in there, but could be an older version. synaptic will give you security updates though!

[nycste]

are you talking about peazip? definitely gtk2 :) you can try in synaptic too, it might be in there, but could be an older version. synaptic will give you security updates though!

thanks bud, gtk2 ok, peazip isnt in ubuntu hardy anymore, i swear i saw it perhaps in 7.0 or something? o well ill install peazip gtk2 shortly



bottom line is,

im just looking for a compression program linux orientated ideally so i can learn something diff, gui is perferred for learning but if commandline is only route so be it, i just need to find directions for doing so...

i wanna just compress a folder with pictures and password it, it seems impossible in vanilla hardy so ive been asking around and installing all compression programs lol

simple solution would be to just attempt to use 7zip or winrar in wine or vmware xp

thanks for anyones feedback

[ghindo]

Is there any program other than rar that can similarly split an archive into multiple files? I've always thought it's a really cool feature, but obviously it is a proprietary one...

[tbroderick]

Is there any program other than rar that can similarly split an archive into multiple files? I've always thought it's a really cool feature, but obviously it is a proprietary one...

lxsplit or peazip.

[ghindo]

lxsplit or peazip.The only problem with those is that they are even more poorly supported than the other archive types discussed in this thread. :( It would be nice if 7z would support multi-volume archives.

[Trail]

"split" and "cat" don't work? :|

[jomiolto]

The only problem with those is that they are even more poorly supported than the other archive types discussed in this thread. :( It would be nice if 7z would support multi-volume archives.

7zip does support multi-volume archives. There's -v switch for the command line version, and IIRC (it's been a long time since I used it) there was a simple option in the GUI of the Windows version for creating multi-volume archives.

[Npl]

7zip does support multi-volume archives. There's -v switch for the command line version, and IIRC (it's been a long time since I used it) there was a simple option in the GUI of the Windows version for creating multi-volume archives.The problem here is that 7z doesnt do it natively like rar, but simply chops up the archive.
For unpacking it needs ALL parts accessible AT ONCE to concenate them and then unpack - so it defeats the purpose of splitting - like putting a backup on multiple CDs/DVDs.
Also with rar you can unpack the content of each part without the rest, 7z has no information for multivolume-archives.

7-zip multivolume is a joke in short.

[nycste]

well just to share i installed winrar 3.71 in wine and it works so far fine

next step is to learn a linux version, cuz well using wine = semi cheating long live my windows habits its just hard learning things the hard way. but im trying

[Polygon]

The problem here is that 7z doesnt do it natively like rar, but simply chops up the archive.
For unpacking it needs ALL parts accessible AT ONCE to concenate them and then unpack - so it defeats the purpose of splitting - like putting a backup on multiple CDs/DVDs.
Also with rar you can unpack the content of each part without the rest, 7z has no information for multivolume-archives.

7-zip multivolume is a joke in short.

but since its a multivolume archive...dont you eventually need all of the archives to be in the same place anyway to extract it? Im not seeing what the big deal is here. If you split up the archive to multiple cds and stuff, just copy all the archives off the cd onto your hard drive and the extract it...

[Npl]

but since its a multivolume archive...dont you eventually need all of the archives to be in the same place anyway to extract it?If you unpack a multivolume RAR, you only need 1 part to start extracting, after that you can change disc to unpack the next part. You also can choose to unpack only a few parts, each part has CRC and Volume-Information so you know which part is broken by simply lookin at that part alone. Thats proper support for multivolume. 7z just cuts a single archive in parts, you could do the same with "split" and "cut". If atleast it dint fake "multivolume" it would be obvious it has no support for it and I wouldnt have to explain the downsides :) . You gain nothing over simply splitting the archive yourself.
Im not seeing what the big deal is here. If you split up the archive to multiple cds and stuff, just copy all the archives off the cd onto your hard drive and the extract it...Why shouldnt I be able to unpack it directly from cd/dvd? Why do I have to copy Gigabytes on HD when I only need a few files? Why should I loose everything if only the very last volume is damaged (7z stores the filenames at the very end of the archive)?

The last issue is also the reason we wont see proper multivolume 7z archives until the archive-format is updated.

[bruce89]

What happened to good old tar (with lzma compression of course)?

[the_darkside_986]

What happened to good old tar (with lzma compression of course)?

It's good for source code but someone showed a figure earlier of how both rar and 7z both beat tarballs heavily in compression.

But it seems like multi-file compression and decompression at once would be trivial to write, even though it might be a hassle to get everyone using an updated version of 7zip especially on GNU/Linux distros that use sta(b)le software for 6 months or whatever.

[bruce89]

It's good for source code but someone showed a figure earlier of how both rar and 7z both beat tarballs heavily in compression.

I don't care about compression ratios. I think that data integrity is much more important. rar is only openable by a non-free system which could disappear rendering all rar files useless. 7z is very much a Windows format.

There's a good reason why tar is still used after all these years.

[wrtpeeps]

Because rar is handiest and I don't care if its free or not.

I also like how in this thread, people assume that just because the guy wants a bit of money for his rather excellent creation, he has become a "greedy patent loving company".

Go figure. :rolleyes:

[the_darkside_986]

I use 7-zip archives all the time in Ubuntu and I can open them from the shell (nautilus) just fine so I do not see how it is a "Windows" format. 7-zip is open source anyway.

I dislike non-free rar as well but I was just pointing that compression ratio example out.

[bruce89]

I use 7-zip archives all the time in Ubuntu and I can open them from the shell (nautilus) just fine so I do not see how it is a "Windows" format. 7-zip is open source anyway.

7z does not store UNIX permissions. Also, 7z implementations have to support numerous compression schemes. This goes against UNIX philosophy of "doing one thing, and doing it well".

[ghindo]

"split" and "cat" don't work? :|Would split and cat be interoperable with Windows and Mac systems?

[bruce89]

Would split and cat be interoperable with Windows and Mac systems?

If they have Cygwin installed.

[Polygon]

7z does not store UNIX permissions. Also, 7z implementations have to support numerous compression schemes. This goes against UNIX philosophy of "doing one thing, and doing it well".

isnt the POINT of tar is to save unix permissions?

so...why not do a tar.7z?


and 7z is open source...and as long as its open source 'all' of the numerous compression schemes can be supported easily...and not to mention maybe in the future the authors could add support for unix permissions

and you cant deny that 7z has better compression, and that is important for some people.

and 7z isnt a 'windows format', you can install it from the ubuntu repos.

[ghindo]

7z does not store UNIX permissions. Also, 7z implementations have to support numerous compression schemes. This goes against UNIX philosophy of "doing one thing, and doing it well".All that means is that 7z shouldn't be used for backups. That doesn't mean it's a "Windows thing."

[bruce89]

isnt the POINT of tar is to save unix permissions?

so...why not do a tar.7z?

Indeed, but why bother with something as complex as 7z for a single file? Much better is LZMAed tar files (LZMA is installed on Hardy).

file-roller 2.23.something has support for 7z compressed tar files by the way.

...and not to mention maybe in the future the authors could add support for unix permissions

Not without breaking the format.

and you cant deny that 7z has better compression, and that is important for some people.

7z is essentially a container format. LZMA is the thing you are saying has "better compression". As I said above, the lzma command is installed on Hardy, and it's much the same thing as the bz2 and gzip pacakages. (compression only, can only work on a single file)

and 7z isnt a 'windows format', you can install it from the ubuntu repos.

So PE (exe) Windows executables aren't Windows files as Wine can open them?

All that means is that 7z shouldn't be used for backups. That doesn't mean it's a "Windows thing."

Well, it sure isn't a UNIX thing either.

[Polygon]

huh?

are you talking about self extracting archives? whenever 'I' create 7z archives, they come out as .7z ....not .exe

[bruce89]

are you talking about self extracting archives?

No. I was saying that Windows executables are definately "Windows files", but they can be run using Wine. In simple terms, saying that 7z is not Windows-centric is like saying Windows executables aren't.

[Polygon]

im so confused, you can INSTALL 7z support in the repos! sure, the guy who created the format only created the program for windows, but he opened up the code

sure, you cant go over to http://www.7-zip.org/download.html and download a linux port of the offical 7z program, but you CAN download the source...and thats what people did..they used teh source code to add support for 7z to their respective programs and operating systems

so instead of downloading the windows port of 7z, we use the wonderful repos and download the unix/linux version of it!

http://packages.ubuntu.com/hardy/p7zip-full

how can it be only a 'windows format' when you can find programs that compress and extract 7z archives on any operating system?

a 'windows format' is something that is only designed to work on windows..but since this guy opened up his code it can work on anything, maybe he just doesn't know enough about other operating systems to port it himself...which is why he lets other people do it

[bruce89]

how can it be only a 'windows format' when you can find programs that compress and extract 7z archives on any operating system?

I've given my reasons already - http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=5452122&postcount=55


No UNIX permissions.
Not just a compression format.
Loads of options (compression and otherwise).


Anyway, I have a by-election to watch.

[klange]

7Zip with 7ZMA (which is its default compression method) is a powerful, light, cross-platform, open-source (LGPL), and free of charge. RAR is powerful, but also heavy, just barely cross-platform, proprietary, and not free of charge (despite how poor their protection against unlicensed use is).

While gz and bz2 will continue to dominate for a long time here in the Linux world, 7Zip's many features will someday bring us all over.

Also, I recommend the client to all of my Windows-using friends and use it myself on my Windows-enslaved machine as it supports so many formats.

[bruce89]

While gz and bz2 will continue to dominate for a long time here in the Linux world, 7Zip's many features will someday bring us all over.

No it won't. gzip and bz2 are compression-only tools. 7z is a over-complicated archive format. lzma may win us over, but due to its speed (4 times slower at compressing than bz2), I doubt it.

For people not understanding the situation, see http://tukaani.org/lzma/

[Polygon]

you can choose how much 7z compresses something. more compression = slower, less compression = faster.

bzip is GNU's answer to zip, we need an answer to rar now, and 7z is it. if you need something quickly compressed, use zip/bzip, but if you need the most compression you can get, most people will use rar/7z since they are better at compressing then all the other formats

[nycste]

gah i just read all the updates, non of which explain how to compress and open things using the different tools and programs

thats what im hoping to learn haha, and then ill get into setting passwords and encypting and even making multiple versionz to make it easier to share online or something like that bittorrent is very common

7z im used to it, i find winrar much easier to use.. but the question is can you get 7z a gui in linux? or i have to install 7z in wine?

[Polygon]

search for 7z in synaptic or add/remove, and then install it, and it should be an option for creating an archive in file-roller. Sometimes it throws a weird error after its done making the archive, but it doesn't matter as the archive still appears to work

[bruce89]

bzip is GNU's answer to zip, we need an answer to rar now, and 7z is it. if you need something quickly compressed, use zip/bzip, but if you need the most compression you can get, most people will use rar/7z since they are better at compressing then all the other formats

gzip with tar was GNU's answer to zip actually. Bzip is better, and lzma is even better than it.

People here seem to struggle with the concept, so I'll expain it here.

7z's high compression ratio is due to the lzma algorithm. There is a program that compresses files with lzma in the same manner as gzip and bzip2 do. It is also called lzma. lzma can only compress one file at a time (like gzip and bzip2). This is where tar comes in. You can tar any number of files, then compress that with lzma.

You see, UNIX has always had programs that usually only do one thing. In this case, one program outputs a file which is a combination of other files (tar, cpio). Another program can compress that file to make it smaller (compress, gzip, bzip2, lzma, etc.). This means that 7z with its inbuilt compression is not the UNIX way.

[ghindo]

I'm really enjoying this thread so far; I'm learning a lot from it, and it's sparking some good questions and debate.

[klange]

...

Thank you for finally clarifying exactly what you're problems are.

Can we agree that lzma is superior and will someday be accepted as the standard in the Linux world?

lzma is part of the 7zip project in such a way that 7z can refer to lzma. Yes, the container format has its drawbacks, but honestly, it's a pretty good format (especially for our tarless friends on the other side...).

[bruce89]

Can we agree that lzma is superior and will someday be accepted as the standard in the Linux world?

lzma is part of the 7zip project in such a way that 7z can refer to lzma. Yes, the container format has its drawbacks, but honestly, it's a pretty good format (especially for our tarless friends on the other side...).

Yes, I can see it becoming one of the compression formats to use. I doubt, due to its speed, it becoming the main one.

I also agree that 7z is a good thing on Windows, but it's too versitile for serious UNIX use.