If you want to be able to directly use bzip2 files with tar, you can use the tar patch available from the LFS FTP site. This patch will add the -j option to tar, which works the same as the -z option used for gzip files. Apply the patch by running the following command: patch -Np1 -i ../tar-&tar-patch-version;.patch Install Tar by running the following commands: ./configure --prefix=/usr \     --libexecdir=/usr/bin --bindir=/bin && make && make install