Linux / UNIX: Untar / Extract a .lzma Tar Ball

I’ve downloaded a file called file.tar.lzma tar ball from the Internet but I am not able to open tar ball. How do I open or extract a .lzma file under Linux or UNIX like operating systems using command line options?

LZMA (Lempel-Ziv-Markov chain-Algorithm) is an improved version of famous LZ77 compression algorithm. It was improved in way of maximum increasing of compression ratio, keeping high decompression speed and low memory requirements for decompressing.

Task: Extract a .tar.lzma Using tar Command

You can use GNU tar version 1.20+ as follows to extract a .lzma tar ball:

tar --lzma -xvf file.tar.lama

LZMA Compression And Decompression Tool

You can install lzma package as follows under Debian / Ubuntu Linux, enter:
$ sudo apt-get install lzma

CentOS / Fedora / RHEL / Redhat Linux user should use the yum command as follows:
# yum install xz

FreeBSD user should use the following commands:
To install the lzma port, enter:
# cd /usr/ports/archivers/lzma/ && make install clean
OR add the lzma binary package under FreeBSD:
# pkg_add -r lzma

Debian / Ubuntu Linux and FreeBSD: Extract a .lzma File

Type the command as follows:

 
unlzma file.tar.lzma
ls -l
tar -xvf file.tar
 

OR

 
lzma -d filr.tar.lzma
ls -l
tar -xvf file.ta

OR

 
lzma -cd file.tar.lzma | tar xvf -
ls
 

Get Information About a .lzma File

Type the command as follows:

 
lzmainfo file.tar.lzma
 

Sample output:

file.tar.lzma
Uncompressed size:             Unknown
Dictionary size:               8 MB (2^23 bytes)
Literal context bits (lc):     3
Literal pos bits (lp):         0
Number of pos bits (pb):       2

CentOS / Redhat Linux (RHEL): Extract a .lzma File

Type the command as follows:

 
xz -d file.tar.lzma
ls -l
tar -xvf file.tar
 

OR

 
xz -cd file.tar.lzma | tar xvf -
 

GUI Tool & CLI Tool Source Code

Use 7-zip tool for Linux or MS-Windows operating systems which is a file archiver with a high compression ratio. You can also download the LZMA SDK provides the documentation, samples, header files, libraries, and tools you need to develop applications that use LZMA compression for UNIX like operating systems.