Identifying And Working With File Types - Red Hat LINUX 7.2 Manual

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Once you become more comfortable with your system, you may want to install software not available
in RPM format. To minimize collisions with RPM-managed files, the best place to put such software
is in /usr/local.

11.5 Identifying and Working with File Types

If you are new to Linux, you may see files with extensions you do not recognize. A file's extension
is the last part of a file's name, after the final dot (in the file sneakers.txt, "txt" is that file's
extension).
Here is a brief listing of extensions and their meanings:
11.5.1 Compressed/Archived Files
• .Z — a compressed file
• .tar — an archive file (short for tape archive)
• .gz — a compressed file (gzipped)
• .tgz — a tarred and gzipped file
For information on creating zip and tar files, see Section 11.6, File Compression and Archiving with
Gzip, Zip, and Tar
11.5.2 File Formats
• .txt — a plain ASCII text file
• .html/.htm — an HTML file
• .ps — a PostScript file; formatted for printing
• .au — an audio file
• .wav — an audio file
• .xpm — an image file
• .jpg — a graphical or image file, such as a photo or artwork
• .gif — a graphical or image file
• .png — a graphical or image file
• .pdf — an electronic image of a document
For information on viewing and creating PDF files, see Section 11.7, Viewing PDFs
Chapter 11:Managing Files and Directories