Untar to a specific directory

How do you usually untar ? Say you saved a tar.gz to Desktop and now want to untar it to
another directory, what is your usual method and do you use the command line ?

I know how with the command line but it's a bit cumbersome.

( I think most folks simply r/click extract and then proceed to move the extracted folder to where they want it).

 

That's what I do. Why the question? What are you thinking about?

 

Just wondering who bothers with the command line for this. Surely we are both striving to become avid cli users ?
Eg. [ocky@localhost General Help]$ tar -C /home/ocky/Desktop -xvzf "/home/ocky/Documents/General Help/rkhunter.tar.gz"
rkhunter/
rkhunter/rkhunter SL6 warnings
rkhunter/README.txt
rkhunter/Lucid rkhunter warnings
rkhunter/rkhunter warnings recd.txt
rkhunter/rkhunter script.mht
rkhunter/rkhunter_scan.sh
rkhunter/rkhunter.mht
rkhunter/rkhunter
[ocky@localhost General Help]$

(for extracting rkhunter.tar.gz to Desktop)

I didn't know this until recently i.e. was always stumped when trying to do it via the command line and thus noob depression set in.

 

tar zxvf <archive> -C <dir>

I find this much more intuitive than the GUI.
For gz, use xzvf.
For bz2, use -xjvf.

-v is optional.

Cheers,
Mrk

 

OK, thanks.
~ Removed Off Topic Comments ~

 

Very useful to know- thanks!

 

Open archive with fileroller (rather than right click/extract) and the use extract option which brings a dialog, part of which allows you choose a destination folder.

If I happen to be in the command line I will extract my tarball from there.

 

great stuff

http://www.computerhope.com/unix/utar.htm

http://www.thegeekstuff.com/2010/04/unix-tar-command-examples/

 

Despite some linux nerds protestations there are particular functions that are more quickly carried out in gui rather than the command line. IMO extracting archives is one of them. Therefore I right click and "extract to"