alex said: > A real beginners question. What is an ISO image? There's > a lot of stuff out there but I can't find anything that > defines what it is...what it does..... Can someone point me > to somewhere that discusses it?
it's sort of like an archive. It is a file which usually contains many files/directories inside it. It maintains a format that is compadible with CDROMs(CDROMs require data to be written to them in a special way) so that the file can be transferred around and maintain the data structure. CD-R software(most) can take this image and place the contents of it on a CD. Many systems can also access ISO images directly, under linux you can do: mount -t iso9660 filename.iso /mnt/cdrom -o loop and you get the contents of filename.iso mounted on /mnt/cdrom ISO images also maintain a lot of other data such as file permissions for unix systems(if the ROCKRIDGE extensions are used), or long filenames for win32 systems(if the JOLIET extensions are used) etc. some people make the mistake of burning the ISO image itself to a CDROM, this is not the way to do it, the software must understand what the file is, and how to use it. Most CD-R software does. The only one I can think of that does not is Adaptec's software(though this may of changed, it's been about 5 years since I used it). more info looks like can be found here: http://www.linuxiso.org/viewdoc.php/isofaq.html nate -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
