How to install / untar / unzip a tar.gz tar.bz2 tar zip file in Linux/Ubuntu?

You could try use

tar -xzvf file.tar.gz

tar -xjvf file.tar.bz2

tar -xvf file.tar

unzip file.zip

this will actually uncompress the file.

Depending on package you need to do
./configure
make
make install (Eg. mplayer)

or leave as it is. (Eg. eclipse, tomcat)