How to Compress / Uncompress files using bzip2 in Linux?

bzip2 compresses files using the Burrows-Wheeler block sorting text compression algorithm, and Huffman coding. Compression is generally considerably better than that achieved by more conventional LZ77/LZ78-based compressors, and approaches the performance of the PPM family of statistical compressors.

bzip2 and bunzip2 are file compression and decompression utilities. The bzip2 and bunzip2 utilities are newer than gzip and gunzip and are not as common yet, but they are rapidly gaining popularity. The bzip2 utility is capable of greater compression ratios than gzip. Therefore, a bzip2 file can be 10-20% smaller than a gzip version of the same file. Usually, files that have been compressed by bzip2 will have a .bz2 extension.

Uncompressing a bzip2 File Using bunzip2
To uncompress a bzip2 file, execute the following command:
bunzip2 filename.txt.bz2     (where filename.txt.bz2 is the name of the file you wish to uncompress)
The result of this operation is a file called filename.txt. By default, bunzip2 will delete the filename.txt.bz2 file.

Compressing a File Using bzip2
To compress a file using bzip2, execute the following command:
bzip2 filename.txt     (where filename.txt is the name of the file you wish to compress)
The result of this operation is a file called filename.txt.bz2. By default, bzip2 will delete the filename.txt file.