free compression tools?

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adam taylor

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HI all, recently moved over from pc to ibook, it's odd feeling like a beginner again!, one of the things ive noticed he most in switching is the relative lack of choice when it comes to free software or utilities. i got so used to handy utilities such as Mailwasher and a few others that it was a surprise when i tried to find their mac counterparts.

anyway enough of that, i see Stuffit seems to be the expander of choice, but is there a free compressor which is in widespread use and reliable (such as winzip)? I dont mind paying if i have to, but obviously free would be better!
 
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shadov

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gzip/gunzip and tar if you are not afraid of command line. Most of UNIX stuff is free.
 
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adam taylor

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heh i sense a learning curve :) i was comfortable in dos, years ago...!
 

rman


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There is a shareware version of Stuffit.
 
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adam taylor

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ta :) looks like it needs a $49 payment though, I'll have a go and see what the trial restrictions are. i was considering buying it anyway if it became an essential.
 
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shadov

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Haven't noticed much restrictions.. It came pre-installed and seems to auto-magically unzip everything I download. I've updated it once but didn't look at EULA too closely :rolleyes:

If you have too much leisure time at your hands, I'd advice to play with the CLI. It's a learning curve, but it's fun and well documented. If you happen to like that sort of things that is. :D
 
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adam taylor

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trial stuffit only expands, as im on a 56k modem, being able to compress is really usefull. just had a thought though... maybe that's what i'll use my old pc for?! :) ta for the stuffit link!
 

rman


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The standard version expands and compresses. I believe that you pay for the deluxe version.
 
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StarManta

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shadov said:
If you have too much leisure time at your hands, I'd advice to play with the CLI. It's a learning curve, but it's fun and well documented.

It's THOROUGHLY document, but I don't know if I'd call it "well" documented ;)

man is one of the worst text-reading interfaces i've ever used, especially since
1) there doesn't seem to be any way to jump to the end
2) i ALWAYS want to go to the end first, where the examples are
3) if you hold the down arrow, it scrolls down, but then if you dont let it up at JUST the right time, man exits and you have to start all over again.

*growls @ man*
 
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StarManta said:
It's THOROUGHLY document, but I don't know if I'd call it "well" documented ;)

man is one of the worst text-reading interfaces i've ever used, especially since
1) there doesn't seem to be any way to jump to the end
2) i ALWAYS want to go to the end first, where the examples are
3) if you hold the down arrow, it scrolls down, but then if you dont let it up at JUST the right time, man exits and you have to start all over again.

*growls @ man*

You should be able to page through using the spacebar, works like that on other nixes anyhow.

Most man pages are also now available as HTML versions and there are plenty of Linux help sites on the web.

For compatibility with PCs gzip is probably best although for personal use I prefer lzop.

The first port of call for any unix utilities is to try the command first with a -h or even --help switch, that will at least give the available switches and expected parameters.

for example (and this is built in on OSX):

gzip -h
gzip 1.2.4 (18 Aug 93)
usage: gzip [-cdfhlLnNrtvV19] [-S suffix] [file ...]
-c --stdout write on standard output, keep original files unchanged
-d --decompress decompress
-f --force force overwrite of output file and compress links
-h --help give this help
-l --list list compressed file contents
-L --license display software license
-n --no-name do not save or restore the original name and time stamp
-N --name save or restore the original name and time stamp
-q --quiet suppress all warnings
-r --recursive operate recursively on directories
-S .suf --suffix .suf use suffix .suf on compressed files
-t --test test compressed file integrity
-v --verbose verbose mode
-V --version display version number
-1 --fast compress faster
-9 --best compress better
file... files to (de)compress. If none given, use standard input.

Amen-Moses
 

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