gzip packed_files.tar

 To pack and compress all at once:
tar -cf - file_to_pack1 file_to_pack2 ... | gzip -c > packed_files.tar.gz

 To create a tar from a directory and its subdirectories:
tar -cvf packed_files.tar dir_to_pack

To unpack tar files, use the following commands:
for an uncompressed tar file:
tar -xvf file_to_unpack.tar

To decompress and unpack one step at a time:
gunzip packed_files.tar.gz
tar -xf packed_files.tar

 To decompress and unpack all at once:
gunzip -c packed_files.tar.gz | tar -xf -

 To list the contents of a tar file, use the following command:
tar -tvf file_to_list.tar
To use bzip2 instead of gzip, simply replace the commands above with bzip2 where gzip is used and bunzip2 where gunzip is used.

 using bzip2:
tar -cjf packed_files.tbz2 file_to_pack1 file_to_pack2 ...

 using compress:
tar -cZf packed_files.tar.Z file_to_pack1 file_to_pack2 ...

 using some other arbitrary compression utility that works as a filter:
tar --use-compress-program=name_of_program -cf packed_files.tar.XXX file_to_pack1 file_to_pack2 ...

 To uncompress and unpack:
a gzip compressed tar file:
tar -xzf file_to_unpack.tar.gz
a bzip2 compressed tar file:
tar -xjf file_to_unpack.tar.bz2
a compress compressed tar file:
tar -xZf file_to_unpack.tar.Z
an arbitrary-compression-utility-compressed tar file:
tar --use-compress-program=name_of_program -xf file_to_unpack.tar.XXX
Some versions of tar use the -y switch to invoke bzip2 rather than -j.