Linux Phrasebook, Second Edition

9. Archiving and Compression

Although the distinction is sometimes made opaque in casual conversation, there is in fact a world of difference between archiving files and compressing them. Archiving means that you take 10 files and combine them into one file, with no difference in size. If you start with 10 100KB files and archive them, the resulting single file is 1000KB. On the other hand, if you compress those 10 files, you might find that the resulting files range from only a few kilobytes to close to the original size of 100KB, depending upon the original file type and how you performed the compression.

Note

In fact, you might end up with a bigger file after compression! If the file is already compressed, compressing it again adds extra ...