[Solved] Archiving "Files" Container Question

[gregorylock]

In my Dos and Windows days I learned how to pkzip files and directories.  As Windows moved on I continued to use the zip format.

I have several web browser profiles.  I've put in a lot of time creating bookmarks etc.  I decided that I should start archiving my .mozilla and .waterfox directories.  That way I can store them on any formatted usb drives.  I tested this out zipping them and discovered that I get errors.  However some of the other formats seem to work.  I decided to google a list of containers to find out what is the most popular.  Here is what I found. Linux Mint File-Roller and Wikipedia List of Archive Formats

Here is a list of formats I'm looking at:  .7z .ar .bz2 .cbz .ear .gz .jar .lzma .tar .tar.7z .tar.bz2 .tar.gz .tar.lzma .tar.xz .war .xz

Which one is the most popular in the Linux community?

[farevildee]

for linux from what ive seen mostly uses tar files. not sure if that helps.

[fchaos]

tar was always the standard linux archive format... but these days you should be able to use nearly anything.

I am surprised you are getting errors with zip files, they should work fine. What archiver are you using to create them?

[Ironclaw]

It always depends on having the underlying libraries installed although I thought it would gripe about that.

[Spatry]

Some time ago I compared file compression formats and the two best formats in terms of compressed size are 7z and tar.xz, I use tar.xz for most of my archiving needs.

[CwF]

I've used thunars "Create Archive" a few times, and will use any installed compression.

now I would just copy the directory as is to a usb drive. I'd maybe zip it up if I were sending it across a network. It's not like space is at a premium anymore, larger files are more risky on poor quality usb drives, and we're limited to a 4GB file size on default formatting.

But then my .mozilla directory in this instance is only 28MB.

Without a fully functional 7zFM like utility in Linux I've abandoned using any. I do use file system level compression, and now expand any zipped files into directories, so my perusing is never slowed by an additional click.

[Ironclaw]

7zip is available on Linux, I'd assume that it's in the default repository of practically every distribution out there.

[Spatry]

7zip is available on Linux, I'd assume that it's in the default repository of practically every distribution out there.

I believe all archive managers on said distributions support 7z out of the box.

[farevildee]

there is but it goes by p7zip for the archiving tool

[gregorylock]

tar was always the standard linux archive format... but these days you should be able to use nearly anything.

I am surprised you are getting errors with zip files, they should work fine. What archiver are you using to create them?

Basically @Spatry answered my question here.

I'm on Xubuntu 18.04. In Thunar File Manager I was trying to use "Create Archive" like @CwF
mentions here I don't know if this is the same thing or not but my Xubuntu 18.04 has Engrampa Archive Manager installed.
 
Just before I logged in here, I tried "Create Archive" under Thunar again.  This time it made the following zip files just fine. 

Code: [Select]

.mozilla.zip
.waterfox.zip
So I don't know what my problem was the other day. I'm marking this thread as [Solved]

[fchaos]

Basically @Spatry answered my question here.

I'm on Xubuntu 18.04. In Thunar File Manager I was trying to use "Create Archive" like @CwF
mentions here I don't know if this is the same thing or not but my Xubuntu 18.04 has Engrampa Archive Manager installed.
  
Just before I logged in here, I tried "Create Archive" under Thunar again.  This time it made the following zip files just fine.  

Code: [Select]

.mozilla.zip
.waterfox.zip

So I don't know what my problem was the other day. I'm marking this thread as [Solved]

Yeah, I believe it's Engrampa in any XFCE version, unless you change it. And yeah, it should be able to make Zip files just fine, always has for me.

Maybe it was just a one time glitch thing.