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I am trying to unzip a .tar.gz file using tar xvzf, as hhaamu said in his answer to my other question about Installing GCC on SCO.

When I type:

bash-3.1$ tar xzf gcc-2.95.2pl1-dist.tar.gz
tar: z: unknown option
Usage: tar -{txruc}[0-9vfbkelmnopwAFLTP] [tapefile] [blocksize] [tapesize] files...
    Key     Device            Block   Size(K)    Tape
    0       /dev/rfd048ds9    18      360        No
    1       /dev/rfd148ds9    18      360        No
    2       /dev/rfd096ds15   10      1200       No
    3       /dev/rfd196ds15   10      1200       No
    4       /dev/rfd0135ds9   18      720        No
    5       /dev/rfd1135ds9   18      720        No
    6       /dev/rfd0135ds18  18      1440       No
    7       /dev/rfd1135ds18  18      1440       No
    8       /dev/rct0         20      0          Yes
    9       /dev/rctmini      20      0          Yes
    10      /dev/rdsk/fp03d   18      720        No
    11      /dev/rdsk/fp03h   18      1440       No
    12      /dev/rdsk/fp03v21 10      20330      No

Notice the second and third line, where it says:

tar: z: unknown option
Usage: tar -{txruc}[0-9vfbkelmnopwAFLTP] [tapefile] [blocksize] [tapesize] files...

What does that mean, and how can I resolve this?

Kevdog777
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    Your version of tar on SCO doesn't provide the -z switch. Seems pretty self explanatory. What part isn't making sense? – slm Nov 13 '13 at 14:45
  • Well it did work before, and wasn't sure if it was suppose to work, so I could successfully extract the file. To be honest I don't know what those letters all mean - I'm still new to all this. – Kevdog777 Nov 13 '13 at 14:48
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    Sure, it's an alphabet soup when you first start out. The letters after the command (tar) are all switches that tell the command to behave in different ways. I would take a look at the tar man page, and ask any questions here about things that don't make sense. If the Q seems too tiny, ask us in the chat room. Many of us congregate there 8-) http://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/26/unix-and-linux – slm Nov 13 '13 at 14:51

1 Answers1

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Your version of tar doesn't apparently provide this switch/feature. So you'll have to do this in 2 steps:

$ gunzip gcc-2.95.2pl1-dist.tar.gz
$ tar xvf gcc-2.95.2pl1-dist.tar

For more information take a look at the man page for tar and also check tar's options.

slm
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Chris
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