Use gzip to compress a file:

gzip file1.txt 

Uncompress a gzip file:

gzip -d file1.txt.gz

Use bzip2 to compress a file:

bzip2 file1.txt

Uncompress a bzip2 file:

bzip2 -d file1.txt.bz2

See: http://www.coderanch.com/t/505258/Applets/java/pack-gz-file-unpack-create

Pack a jar file.

pack200 archive.pack.gz archive.jar

Unpack a jar file.

unpack200 archive.pack.gz archive.jar

List the content of a jar archive.

unzip -l archive.jar

Use tar to collect a bunch of files into one file.

Tar and compress all files in /opt into file called opt.tar.gz

tar czvf opt.tar.gz /opt

Untar files back to /opt

tar xvzf opt.tar.gz /opt

Tar and compress all files in /opt into file called opt.tar.bz

tar cjvf opt.tar.gz /opt

Extract a tar.bz2 file.

tar -jxvf filename.tar.bz2

Use star to archive files on a system using SELinux

Install star.

yum install star

Create file opt.star and save all extended attribs record headers with acl

star -xattr -H=exustar -c -f=opt.star /opt/

Extract a star archive.

tar -x -f=opt.star

List the content of a zip archive.

unzip -l archive.zip