[ILUG-BOM] tarballs-why r they so called?

[S. Krishnan]

--- Nikhil Joshi <nikhiljoshy at yahoo.com> wrote:
> We have zip compression format in Linux and Windows
> though it is more
> popular in Windows. I can imagine 'zipping' as
> compressing the data .
> Over a few days I have realised that tar format of
> compresion is the more
> widely used format not only for backing up data
> locally on the hard disk but 
> also for distribution of software.
> So why is it called tar and why the file called
> tarball?
> 

Actually, tar (which stands for Tape ARchive) is a
method of concatenating several files into a single
archive file.  It is not a file compressor.  The tar
archive file is subsequently compressed using gzip to
produce a gzipped archive file with the extension
".tar.gz" or ".tgz".  

Rgds,

Krishnan


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