You're doing it a bit backward, name the file to be created, then the files to be added to archive. [user@home]$ tar -czfv file.tar.gz PIC03442.ARW [user@home]$ file file.tar.gz file.tar.gz: gzip compressed data, from Unix, original size modulo 2^32 1464320 [user@home]$ 7z l file.tar.gz 7-Zip [64] 16.02 : Copyright (c) 1999-2016 Igor Pavlov : 2016-05-21 p7zip Version 16.02 (locale=en_US.UTF-8,Utf16=on,HugeFiles=on,64 bits,8 CPUs Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-7700HQ CPU @ 2.80GHz (906E9),ASM,AES-NI) Scanning the drive for archives: 1 file, 1358768 bytes (1327 KiB) Listing archive: file.tar.gz -- Path = file.tar.gz Type = gzip Headers Size = 10 Date Time Attr Size Compressed Name ------------------- ----- ------------ ------------ ------------------------ ..... 1464320 1358768 file.tar ------------------- ----- ------------ ------------ ------------------------ 1464320 1358768 1 files -mb On Thu, Sep 24, 2020 at 10:09 AM Michael via PLUG-discuss < plug-discuss@lists.phxlinux.org> wrote: > I need to create a gzip file. > This is what I've done: > > > -- > :-)~MIKE~(-: > > michael@MyNUC:~/Pictures/calibration images$ tar -czf PIC03442.ARW > tar: Cowardly refusing to create an empty archive > Try 'tar --help' or 'tar --usage' for more information. > michael@MyNUC:~/Pictures/calibration images$ tar --usage > michael@MyNUC:~/Pictures/calibration images$ tar -cf PIC03442.ARW -z > tar: Cowardly refusing to create an empty archive > Try 'tar --help' or 'tar --usage' for more information. > michael@MyNUC:~/Pictures/calibration images$ man tar > michael@MyNUC:~/Pictures/calibration images$ tar -c -fz PIC03442.ARW > michael@MyNUC:~/Pictures/calibration images$ ls > PIC03441.ARW PIC03441.JPG PIC03442.ARW PIC03442.JPG z > michael@MyNUC:~/Pictures/calibration images$ rm z > michael@MyNUC:~/Pictures/calibration images$ tar -c -zf PIC03442.ARW > tar: Cowardly refusing to create an empty archive > Try 'tar --help' or 'tar --usage' for more information. > michael@MyNUC:~/Pictures/calibration images$ > > it is tar .... what! > --------------------------------------------------- > PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.phxlinux.org > To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: > https://lists.phxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss