Compression
rar
apt install unrar-free
zip
Useful when compressing for Windows. Might need 7zip on Windows to extract password protected archives.
Do not use -p, use -e instead.
zip -r -e -P password archive-name.zip dir-to-be-compressed/
pigz
Install
apt install pigz
Compress single file and delete original
pigz filename.txt
Compress single file and keep the original
pigz -k filename.txt
Pigz check file contents
pigz -l file.gz
Compress directory
tar --use-compress-program="pigz -k " -cf oldsystem.tgz OLDSYSTEM/
Decompress single file
pigz -dc data.pigz > data.out
Decompress directory
tar -I pigz -xvf compressed_file.tar.gz
gzip
tar -cvzf my_directory.tgz my_directory
Benchmarks I found on the internet
| Compression | Size | Time Elapsed | Command |
| gzip | 954 MB | 2:10 | tar cf - AOM/ | gzip -9 - > AOM.tar.gz |
| xz | 847 MB | 27:32 | tar cf - AOM/ | xz -9e - > AOM.tar.xz |
| bzip2 | 943 MB | 5:42 | tar cf - AOM/ | bzip2 -9 - > AOM.tar.bz2 |
| 7zip | 845 MB | 16:41 | 7z a -mx=9 AOM.7z AOM/ |
| zip | 955 MB | 2:05 | zip -9 -r AOM.zip AOM/ |
| rar | 876 MB | 6:31 | rar a -m5 AOM.rar AOM/* |
| zstd | 873 MB | 22:19 | tar -I ‘zstd –ultra -22’ -cf AOM.tar.zst AOM/ |
lz4
Compress with:
lz4 file
Decompress with:
lz4 -d file.lz4