[bugmenot]

Hello all

I need to compress a directory with single files that dosent fit into a single CD. And since i lack a DVD burner, i need to compress these files into a multi-file archieve, like .RAR, R01 etc...

the question is how i can accomplish this? I need it to be done so it can be uncompressed with 7-zip, so please give me suggestions that can be uncompressed on windows machines too

Thank you!

[antidrugue]

With RAR, you can do it like that:

rar a -v<volume_size_in_kb>k -vn resulting.rar file1 file2 file3

The general syntax is this :

rar <command> [-<switch 1> -<switch N>] archive [files...]

So something like that would compress file1.avi and file2.avi in .rar files of 1000kb :

rar a -v1000k -vn resulting.rar file1.avi file2.avi

More in the "rar" manual :

man rar

You can even do something like that :

rar a -v1000k -v2000k -v3000k -vn resulting.rar file1.avi file2.avi

different volume size for different .rar files.

*The -vn extension is for old naming scheme, like archive.rar, archive.r01, archive.r02, ... instead of the new naming scheme : archive.part01.rar, archive.part02.rar, etc.

[SteveA]

The p7zip package for Linux includes the '7za' utility

You can create an archive from the current directory as:
7za a -r archivename .
and extract as:
7za x archivename.7z

These can be handled by 7zip on Windows.

There are many compression/decompression utilities under Linux. The "tar" with compression variants are very popular, but requires a corresponding WIndows utility (winzip works on some, don't know about 7zip).
tar -czvf archive.tgz .
tar -xzvf archive.tgz

[SteveA]

The p7zip package for Linux includes the '7za' utility

You can create an archive from the current directory as:
7za a -r archivename .
and extract as:
7za x archivename.7z

These can be handled by 7zip on Windows.

There are many compression/decompression utilities under Linux. The "tar" with compression variants are very popular, but requires a corresponding Windows utility (winzip works on some, don't know about 7zip).
tar -czvf archive.tgz .
tar -xzvf archive.tgz

[mgh]

IS better to use 7zip because is one of the best file compressors: Is GPL'd (rar is shareware), both speeds and compression ratio performances are very similar, 7zip is more compatible with various OS.
including the oldies.

The problem comes when you try to compress *.avi files. 'avi' and 'mpeg' formats are them-selves compressed, in other words, they are compressed packages. So one file compressed 7z or rar will be almost every time the same size of the uncompressed file if not more.

For video files try Matroska (.mkv) Is wonderful, GPL'd, have better audio and video resolution, and much better compression (audio .ogg).

Try to convert your video files to matroska

Originally Posted by SteveA

The p7zip package for Linux includes the '7za' utility

You can create an archive from the current directory as:
7za a -r archivename .
and extract as:
7za x archivename.7z

These can be handled by 7zip on Windows.

There are many compression/decompression utilities under Linux. The "tar" with compression variants are very popular, but requires a corresponding WIndows utility (winzip works on some, don't know about 7zip).
tar -czvf archive.tgz .
tar -xzvf archive.tgz

Almost forgotten: Newest p7zip versions have seemingly better performance than recent versions.
In Wind**s there are very many compressors which can handle 7z files: Powerarchiver, winzip or winrar, etc. See the 7zip home page...