GNU Compressed UNIX Tarfiles

Gzip is provided by the Free Software Foundation GNU project. It is available for multple system platforms, and may be freely downloaded from the internet.

To Obtain GNU Gzip Software

The Macintosh gzip version is available at:

Other versions, along with other GNU software, can be found at:

Hints for Using Gzip on Selected Systems

Unix

To compress files, use the command 'gzip'; gunzip will decompress a '.gz' file. The command 'man gzip' will provide more information on how to use gzip.

MS-Dos

To compress files, use the command 'gzip'; 'gzip -d' will decompress a '.gz' file. The command 'gzip -h' will provide more information on how to use gzip.

Macintosh

The Macintosh web site provides full instructions on how to use MacGzip.

Using VEMAP Gzip Tarfiles

Tarfiles can be found under the subdirectory /tarFiles. To use these files, first FTP the desired tarfile to your home machine (remember to set the transfer mode to binary (bi) before transferring tarfiles). Then decompress the '*.gz' file and extract the archived files using the GNU gzip and tar commands appropriate to your machine. For example, on a UNIX system, type:

This process will create a complete set of files in your currect local directory. The tarfiles frequently contain a considerable number of files so be sure to allocate sufficient space in your currect directory. The space required for the decompressed and extracted files varies greatly. For a complete listing of the space required for each tar file, download the file:

from ftp.ucar.edu.

Characteristic decompressed and/or extracted individual file sizes are:

Tim Kittel
kittel@ucar.edu
(303) 497-1606

Nan Rosenbloom
nanr@ucar.edu
(303) 497-1617

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