Although 7-Zip is available for both Windows and Linux, only the Windows port has a GUI front end. This means, by default, using 7-Zip in Linux requires the use of commands. Normally this is fine, but the 7-Zip commands can be fairly confusing (even to the experienced user). Fortunately 7-Zip does integrate well with the GNOME and KDE desktops. And it has a front end available. This front end is Q7z and was not created nor is maintained by the makers of 7-Zip.

In this article I will show you how to install and use the Q7Z front end for 7-zip on Linux.

Installation

Although you will find various packages on the Q7Z download page, you should avoid the pre-packaged binaries. Instead you will want to download the Autopackage File, which should work on just about any Linux distribution. Once you have downloaded that file you will need to open up a terminal and follow these steps;

1. Change to the directory holding the Autopackage File.
2. Give the file executable permissions with the command chmod u+x q7z-XXX-package Where XXX is the release number.
3. Issue the command sudo ./q7z-XXX-package Where XXX is the release number.

The installer will begin and walk you through the process. The only interaction necessary is for you to enter your sudo password twice. The Autopackage installer will automatically download all of the dependencies for you and run the full install process. When the installer closes you can then run Q7Z with the command Q7Z.pyw.

Usage

Figure 1

When you fire up the Q7Z tool, the main window should be fairly obvious to figure out. But just in case, let’s take a look at the process of compressing a folder.

Step 1: Click on the Locations tab.

Step 2: Click on the “Dir” button.

Step 3: Navigate to the folder you want to compress and click Open.

Step 4: If you want the compressed archive to be saved in a different location click the check box for “Destination” and then supply an alternate destination for your archive.

Step 5: Go back to the Specifications tab and specify the type of compression you want and any other options you might want to use. From this tab you can also create a self extracting archive (.exe file) as well as password protect your compressed files.

Step 6: Click the Create button.

Depending upon the size of the archive, the process could take some time.

Extracting

You can also extract archives with this same tool. The process is very similar to the creation of archive, only you work in reverse and you are using the Extract tab. The extraction process can extract the same file types that are supported with the compression (zip, 7z, bunzip2, tar, gzip, XZ).

Final thoughts

If you aren’t happy with your compression tool, you might want to give Q7Z and 7-zip a go. It offers solid compression, password protection, varied compression levels. and much more – all in an easy to use GUI interface. And if you’re not terribly happy with G7Z, 7-zip does integrate with Nautilus, so you can use that instead.

PeaZip just recently has been updated to version 3 that introduces several new options and features. Peazip 3 is available as a portable version or an installer for Windows and for Linux as well. The data compression software offers full support for the popular formats 7z, gz, tar and zip and can extract dozens more including rar, gzip or cab.

The program obviously supports the standard operations that all the popular archivers offer. The additional options provided by PeaZip 3 on the other hand make it interesting at least for some uses.

Peazip 3 supports for instance archive encryption with a password or keyfile, secure deletion of files from within the program, advanced filters to include or exclude files, multiple basic and advanced editor support, system tool access like defragmentation, converting a disk to NTFS or cleaning up the disk and add-on support to increase the program’s functionality.

The file compression software has lots of options that make it interesting. Users who want to download PeaZip can do so at the project’s homepage at Sourceforge.

For most old-school Linux users, creating archive consisted of dropping to the command line and issue a command like tar cfz directory.tgz directory (where directory is the name of the directory to archirve). But new users fear the command line. So, thanks to GNOME, there is an easier way to achieve this.

The folder right click menu.

If you open up the Nautilus File Manger and right click on a folder you will see the menu shown in the image to the left.

By clicking the “Create Archive” entry a new window will appear that allows you to configure the archive you want to create. This new window allows you to configure the type of compression, the location and name of the archive, and (if you have encryption enabled), add encryption and split into volumes.

Configure your archive

Once you have configured your archive click the Create button and the archive will automatically be placed in the Location you chose.

Take note of the file extension. This extension will determine if the archive is compressed or not. There are eight possible options to choose from. If you want compression I would suggest going with either the .tgz or the tar.bz2 extensions.

Final Thoughts

If you’ve ever wanted simple and fast archiving, GNOME has just the tool for you. This method of archiving folders can not be topped for ease of use.

Bitser comes with an interface that is divided into two areas. One is displaying the contents of the compressed files with the other is displaying the directory structure. This makes it much easier to add files to an compressed archive without having to drag and drop contents from the Windows operating system into the application. Like most file compression programs Bitser supports a wide variety of file compression formats including the popular zip, rar and 7z formats.

The output formats are limited to zip, 7z or exe though. Bitser comes with the standard functionality of all file compression programs like password protecting archives, drag and drop support and the integration into the operating system.

The interesting aspect of the program is the Explorer like interface. It can be used to browse many archives in relatively short time. The local file browser makes it possible to browse the computer system and inspect any compressed archives in no time. Another interesting option is the extensive reporting section which contains reports of previous operations. Reports contain information about files, sizes, dates, the compression algorithms, commands and results that can be saved in rft format for further analysis or archiving.

Bitser is a valid alternative for users who regularly work with compressed files in the Windows operating system. The interface makes it a tad easier to work with those files which puts it ahead of most other file compression programs. It does require the Microsoft .net Framework 3.5 and will run on Windows Vista, Windows XP and Windows Server 2003.

If you are just looking for a file compression software that can extract archive contents you might be better off with a tool like 7-zip or the Universal Extractor.

It still looks like a normal 42 Kilobyte archive after the download but the surprise begins when the user tries to unpack that file. What they did was basically pack a 4.3 Gigabyte file consisting only of zeros. That packed file was replicated 16 times and packed again, and again, and again, and again. Or, to use their own words:

The file contains 16 zipped files, which again contains 16 zipped files, which again contains 16 zipped files, which again contains 16 zipped, which again contains 16 zipped files, which contain 1 file, with the size of 4.3GB.

You could basically unpack the 42 Kilobyte file into 4.5 Petabyte of uncompressed data if your hard drive storage space would be enough to do that.