Upstream 7-Zip Adds Preliminary Linux Support

While there has been 7-Zip file support on Linux via the p7zip project, the upstream 7-Zip 21.01 Alpha release has finally introduced native Linux support.

Igor Pavlov announced the availability this week of 7-Zip for Linux -- the first "official" 7-Zip port to Linux and similar to the p7zip implementation.

This command-line-only Linux version was announced as part of 7-Zip 21.01 Alpha. That alpha release also improves 7-Zip's 64-bit ARM support, provides a number of bug fixes, and more.

Via this thread are 7-Zip 21.01 Alpha builds for Linux x86_64, ARM64, x86 32-bit, and ARMv7 HF.

A stable 7-Zip 21.01 release is expected soon.

While seeing official Linux support out of 7-Zip is exciting, there isn't yet the source code drop of 21.01 with it continuing to seemingly be developed behind closed doors. 7-Zip 21.01 is still GNU LGPL licensed.

Lead developer Igor Pavlov also noted in the aforelinked thread that at the moment p7zip offers easier build scripts for the moment though some have volunteered to help improve the 7-Zip Linux support when sources are available. There are also some differences in the command line handling between 7-Zip and p7zip at this point. In any case, nice finally seeing official Linux support for 7-Zip.

Once the source is posted, I'll be updating our 7-Zip compression benchmark.