Coming to grips with tar. O ne of the most useful and necessary tools you need to know about is tar . Times have changed now and disk space is cheap. As it's name suggests, tar allows files to be bundled together for archival purposes. Think of it as the Unix version of WinZip or PKZip.
Backups are a common task for which tar is used.
Entire directories can be conveniently backed up into a single file 1 and archived for safe keeping. A significant amount of Linux software is still distributed in tar format. Make no mistake, tar is still alive and well and if you want to get the most out of Linux, you need to understand how to use it. It is a very powerful utility. Basic usage is also covered in most Linux books.