[ Thanks to codez for this
link. ]
“This is important. We’re talking about tar, that sticky
software that bonds files together into one big ball. It’s one of
the most important programs you’ll learn to use from the Linux CLI.
Why? Because most free/open source software makes use of tar in
distributing itself, that’s why. So unless you know – at a minimum
– how to untar a tarball, you will remain cut off from a vital
flow, nay, from the heartbeat of free/open source software. That’s
why tar is a necessary skill for you to learn. That, and the fact
you need to know how to use it to earn your CLI merit-badge.“The name comes from Tape Archive. It’s no wonder it’s so widely
used by the open source community, especially in the distribution
of software. Tar allows developers to create a ‘tarball’ containing
everything needed, including directory structures, to build and
install complex applications from their source code. Note that tar
does not actually do any compression. It simply sticks all the
files together into a single tarball, or archive. Normally the
tarball itself is then compressed by another program. But tar is
smart enough to handle both the compression and the
decompression–using those other programs–if you tell it to do
so…”