Cross-platform file compression

A Comprehensive Solution

This article barely scrapes the surface of zip's capabilities. zip is a command almost as old as personal computing, and its man page consists of over 1,900 lines. Still, even this overview gives some impression of its functionality. Even though it is not a traditional part of the Unix toolkit, if you use file compression regularly, zip is worth a closer look. And should you be sending files to some other operating system, your colleagues will thank you for using it.

The Author

Bruce Byfield is a computer journalist and a freelance writer and editor specializing in free and open source software. In addition to his writing projects, he also teaches live and e-learning courses. In his spare time, Bruce writes about Northwest coast art (http://brucebyfield.wordpress.com). He is also co-founder of Prentice Pieces, a blog about writing and fantasy at https://prenticepieces.com/.

Buy this article as PDF

Express-Checkout as PDF
Price $2.95
(incl. VAT)

Buy Linux Magazine

SINGLE ISSUES
 
SUBSCRIPTIONS
 
TABLET & SMARTPHONE APPS
Get it on Google Play

US / Canada

Get it on Google Play

UK / Australia

Related content

  • Command Line: gzip, bzip2, tar

    A short command is all it takes to pack your data or extract it from an archive.

  • Command Line: Archives

    Gzip and bzip2 not only compress files, they also provide lean and powerful tools for viewing, searching, and comparing text files.

  • Command Line – zstd

    In an effort to meet modern computing needs, zstd offers a greater degree of compression at a faster compression rate, with unique options to enhance performance.

  • Zip It

    Like other modern replacement commands, zstd offers significantly faster file compression than the standard archiving tools.

  • Graphical Archiving Tools

    Linux supports a number of easy graphical tools for saving data to compressed archives.

comments powered by Disqus
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters

Support Our Work

Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.

Learn More

News