Hello there. I am quasi new to Linux. Iv'e used it in the past, and am begining to use it again after a long relapse into windows.

Anyways, I am trying to extract various files (from themes, to programs) that
are in the tar.gz format. About 80% of them seem to fail. Very very few work.
This is what happens.
I go into the directory with the file in question in a terminal, type in

tar -xvzf filename.tar.gz

and I get the error,

gzip: stdin: not in gzip format
tar: Child returned status 1
tar: Error exit delayed from previous errors

I get this on nearly EVERY tar.gz file I have tried. And I know that these
files work, and is not a problem with them. Iv'e tried the gunzip comands and
whatnot, and they give similar error messages, saying it is not in gzip format.

(Im not sure if it matters but I have also tried

tar zxvf filename.tar.gz

and it gives same result, as well as many other suffixes after the tar command.)

What is happening here? Why can I not access any of these files.
Is there a program that is graphical that can access these compressed files,
similar a winzip and what not?

Thanks a heap,
Jameth

Oh yea, and I am using Mandraken 8.02

-Jameth

*Madrake 8.02 that is :)

try either tar -xvzf
and also... tar -xvZf (uppercase Z)

I'm getting the identical error. I'm running RH 7.1. I'm trying to convert from Win98 to Linux. I've tried multiple variations of tar and it's switches. I'm contacting the modem vendor to see if the tar file is "bad". Thanks for the suggestions.