How To Extract .tar.gz Files using Linux Command Line

$ tar xvzf filename.tar.gz 

To extract the .gz file without tar, you can use the following command:

$ gunzip filename.gz

If your tar file is compressed using a bZip2 compressor, use the following command to extract it.

$ tar xvjf file.tar.bz2

Where ‘j’ will decompress a bzip2 file.