[ale] rar file, can anything read it on Linux?

[Dow Hurst]

7-zip contains a open source project called lzma for encoding that is 
wonderful.  You can use it in 7-zip or you can get it directly as a 
standalone program.  I was able to encode a data file and compress it by 
30% and no other algorithm I've tried even came close.  The typical 
stuff like bzip2 or gzip just expand the size of the file.  Just google 
LZMA and you should find the project.  I don't have the link here.
Dow


Michael B. Trausch wrote:
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>Jerald Sheets wrote On 04/19/2006 01:38 PM:
>  
>>I've quietly wondered that to myself of late as well.
>>
>>Ideas?
>>
>>--Jerald
>>
>>    
>
>RAR, among other things, for a number of years (and even through to
>today, I think) was a widely used format for the piracy of software
>programs.  It has been around for quite a long time.
>
>The RAR format itself is proprietary in a sense -- you have to get a
>license to use the encoder, and while the decoder is open, it is open
>under the terms of not using it for the purpose of reverse engineering
>it to create a RAR encoder.
>
>It is a highly durable format for compression of many various types of
>data, and at one time, was the best format out there for encoding
>things.  It is capable of saving NTFS security data and streams, which
>is one of its more interesting features.  The format can use AES for
>encryption of the items that it holds, secured with a 128-bit key.
>
>The web site purports that it is possible to have a maximum archive size
>of 8,589,000,000,000,000,000 GB in size (approx 8.5 exabytes), though I
>know of no way to test this theory as I have nothing *close* to that
>amount of storage available to me, even combined across the computers
>that I have accounts on.
>
>RAR has also been known to be used to encrypt and compress audio and
>video of the more "adult" variety.
>
>For whatever reason, it has become more popular then it used to be and
>appears to have left the genre of mostly bootlegged software, graphics,
>video, and audio.  I'm not quite sure of why, because IIRC, 7-Zip is a
>more efficient compression format in general-purpose use, though
>Wikipedia says that RAR and 7-Zip pretty much match each other depending
>on the specific purpose, though 7-Zip is freely available and RAR is
>not, at least legally.
>
>Nowhere was I able to find a concise history of RAR, which is kind of a
>shame, as I am curious as to when the compression format was originally
>engineered myself.  I only know that it's been around for quite some
>time as I recall somebody once asking me about the format quite some
>time ago, and I had never heard of it at that point, which sent me
>searching for information on it.  Perhaps somebody here will be able to
>find the information if it is important enough.
>
>	- Mike
>
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAR - Some general RAR information.
>http://www.rarlab.com/ - Official RAR web site
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