Tar is used to archive and compress files and directories in Linux. It can be installed using yum or apt-get depending on the distribution. Tar creates archives with options like c for create and z for gzip compression. The split and cat commands can be used to split large tar files into parts and combine them. Sed is used for text editing and search/replace tasks in files. The useradd and group commands are used for user and group management like creating, modifying, and deleting users and groups.