I don't have an “extract” option when right-clicking .tar.gz files? How else can I run these?

Question

I'm as newbie as they come. I've just installed Crouton KDE on my Chromebook. All went well, however, I downloaded Popcorn Time for Linux64 from their site, it's in my downloads folder, but I have no idea how to install it? I also downloaded Firefox from their website, it did the same.

Basically, everywhere I've read on the internet people say "right click on the .tar file and click "extract", however I don't even have an extract option when I right click????

Any help, suggestions or alternate ways to install these file types would be greatly appreciated!! Thanks :)

Answer 1

Depending on the file manager you are using you may need additional packages:

• file-roller - archive manager that supports tar files etc
• nemo-fileroller - plugin for the Nemo file manager (only) that enables the the Right Click extract button

You can install them via apt-get - e.g sudo apt-get install file-roller. You may also be able to do this from and installed graphical package managers such as the Software Center or Synaptic.

Alternatively, you may be able to open the archive via Right Click > Open With 'Archive Manager' or similar. You can use command line as well:

tar xf archive.tar.gz

Tar should recognize any extra format (source) and use the appropriate decompress or (e.g gunzip (gz))

N.B. tar files are files that can contain files and folders in one file (without compression). Gunzip, 7zip, etc can be used to compress tar files to reduce their size, making file names such as archive.tar.gz or archive.tar.7z etc. Sort of similar to .zip files