On Fri, 30 Aug 2002, Shaun Oliver wrote: > tar xyf filename.tar.bz2 > the y option should tell tar to pipe through bzip2 That depends which distribution and version of tar you are using. Originally the option was -y, then it was changed to -I, then to -j. The latest "stable" version of tar (v1.13) is more than three years old and has no bzip2 option, but most distributions are either using newer beta versions or applying ad-hoc patches to add in bzip2 support with differing letters for the option. It is a mess for the time being.