[KLUG Members] Re: Burning ISO images

[Bryan J. Smith]

On Wed, 2002-01-16 at 08:25, Scott Van Singel wrote:
> Thanks for the imput. I was able to create the images on CD and they work. 
> What I had to do was, download the ISO packages from Red Hat and save them to my Hard Drive. 
> After the data was saved, I had to rename them to add ".iso" extension at the end. 

Why did you have to "rename" them?  What browser/downloader did you
use?  Were they not ".iso" on the site?

> Then I opened Adaptec and clicked on "Data CD". 
> When the Options opened I clicked on File, Save from Image, then clicked on the file that I want. 
> Once the CD was burned I could read the files on it. 

Which is why .iso is such a great format!  It's a "self-contained"
filesystem.  This is necessary because Windows doesn't natively support
a lot of the details of a CD filesystem, much less UNIX/Mac-specific
ones (c/o the "RockRidge" extensions). 

E.g., if you downloaded all those files individually onto Windows, and
then tried to "re-master" with Adaptec CD Creator, a lot of the "special
attributes" that the CD needs at boot would be lost.  That's because
Windows doesn't support RockRidge (but only it's own, platform-centric
"Joliet" extensions).

MKISOFS/CDRECORD

BTW, the typical "UNIX" programs used for mastering and burning are:
   mkisofs -- "master" .iso images
   cdrecord -- "record" an .iso (and other types) of images

mkisofs can create standard ISO9660 images with either 8.3 or
32-character filenames.  It also support UNIX/Mac "RockRidge" for
UNIX/Mac-specific meta-data as well as Microsoft "Joliet" for
Windows-specific meta-data -- even both simultaneously (hence why you
can see filenames on your CD that are greater than 8.3 in Windows --
because the .iso has both RockRidge+Joliet).  It can also create hybrid
ISO9660/HFS CDs -- HFS is an older (but still used) SGI/Apple filesystem
format (and not just for CDs).

Both mkisofs and cdrecord are available for non-UNIX platforms as well. 
The popular "Cygwin" (http://sources.redhat.com/cygwin) "UNIX
environment for Windows" includes them as standard.  So you can master
ISO images on Windows without having to buy an overpriced program like
Adaptec's CD Creator.

-- Bryan

-- 
Bryan J. Smith, Engineer          mailto:b.j.smith@ieee.org
AbsoluteValue Systems, Inc.       http://www.linux-wlan.org
SmithConcepts, Inc.            http://www.SmithConcepts.com