"The Linux Gazette...making Linux just a little more fun!"

The Answer Guy

By James T. Dennis, [email protected]
LinuxCare, http://www.linuxcare.com/

What to do with .ISO files

From thnitos on Thu, 23 Mar 2000

Answer Guy,

When you burn an ISO image to a CD, is it converted into something else? RAW data?

I am completely unknowledged in this area, and am probably perceived as an idiot, today is the first time I have ever been face to face with ISO images (*.iso files) and am not certain how exactly to use it.

I am running WinNT currently, with WinOnCD v3.6 software. I already have, and run Redhat Linux 6.1, but wanted to try out Mandrake Linux 7 and Corel Linux.

I downloaded the *.iso files, but when I went to burn the files to the CD, they still burned in as *.iso files and didn't seem to be converted from RAW data to anything. So, how would I be able to install from an *.iso file?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

-Lewis

ps. Yes, I could do more research and find out what to do with *.iso files, but I have an inordinated amount of work to do - and it seems time is the smallest commodity.

Ahh. Your time is a precious commodity, so you wanted me to take some of my time explaining it rather than doing a web search to see if you could find it yourself?

Well, luckily LG is my hobby, and I'm finally back from that Motorola contract in Tempe, so I can hope to get caught up on some of my LG backlog.

It sounds like your WinOnCD software is converting the ISO image file into an ISO image before writing it. There should be some sort of menu option that tells it to just do the burn and skip the preliminaries. However, I don't know anything about WinOnCD.

An ISO image file should be in a form that can be burned right out to your CDR media. Under Linux you do this is two steps, using two different utilities. First the .ISO image file is created using the 'mkisofs' or the 'mkhybrid' utilities. Then the resulting image is burned onto CDs using a command like cdrecord or the older cdwrite (possibly through one of several graphical "front end" interfaces).

So, why not read through the CD-Writing HOWTO (http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/CD-Writing-HOWTO.html). I've at least saved you the time of hunting down the URLs.

This HOWTO was just updated on the 5th of March, 2000. So it's worth re-reading even if you think you've seen it before.

You can also find links to all of the necessary software by perusing:

http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/CD-Writing-HOWTO-2.html#ss2.2

RE: When you burn an ISO image to a CD...

From lewis on Fri, 24 Mar 2000

Jim,

Thanks for your information. And ironically, shortly (next day) after I wrote you the email, I did find out what was going wrong and how to fix it.

WinOnCD did have the capability, but it was somewhat a "hidden" feature of sorts.

I do appreciate your response, though.

-Lewis

ps. What kind of work did you do for Motorola?