windows 7 and linux downloads
 

when i go to distrowatch.com, i have windows 7 home premium, and i download an iso file, everytime its a winzip file...how do i download a regular iso file..or will it allways be a winzip file..? and i have trouble burning it too. after i download it, and unzip it...its multiple files, and not one iso file

Which distro are you trying to download?

i have tryed 3, they are all winzip...just wonder if this is a windows 7 thing...ubuntu, mint and pclinux...with i click on the download, iso file..windows 7 comes up with a winzip thing....

You need to grab a free iso burner program. As you only have Winzip it is interpreting the file as a normal compressed file rather than as an iso.

i do have a iso image burner, i cannot burn a winzip file, and when i extract files from the winzip ,,i get this in a folder

.disk
casper
drivers
iso linux
preseed
autorun
immenu
md5sum
mint4win

when i unzip the iso file, why is there not just one iso file in the folder, instead of all the files i posted? is the iso linux file the one to burn ? and as an image?

this is a windows 7 thing, because vista will download it as a iso file..just wonder how i change this behavior in windows 7

Apparently you do not have the extension .iso linked to your image burner software but to WinZip, that's why you always open it with WinZip. Select the iso file, click right mouse button, select Open with... , select your cd burner software, check the box (always open with this program or something similar) and hit OK. That should change the link from WinZip to your CD burner software.

You don't have to unzip the iso file, just burn the iso to a CD using your CD burner software.

Kind regards,

Eric

Or open your iso-burner and select an option to burn an iso file (browse to where you saved your iso and select it)

i don,t know why they made windows 7 like that..is there not a setting in windows 7 that i can change so the downloads are not winzip? my vist rig downloads the file as an iso....?

the files that i extracted are as above,,,? is it the isolinux file that i burn?

You don't extract it, like sycamorex said, open your cd burner software, select burn image, select the iso (the ONE file you downloaded) and burn it. That's all you need to do. Then you'll be able to boot from the CD, install Linux and forget all about Windoze. ;)

Kind regards,

Eric

They are not winzip, they are iso, the problem is that your OS associates .iso with a winzip software. As I wrote before, open your iso-burner program and from the program's menu, open your iso file to be burned to CD/DVD.

maybe i am missing something,,windows 7 will only download distro iso files from distrowatch as a winzip file, its compressed...and when i try to burn the winzip files. it states wrong file format.?okay..i will try it again and see what happens.

Worst case scenario, I think that there's a wget for windows. Use wget to grab the iso image from the http URL. Take the middle man out of the picture. Then you have an iso to open in your burner software.

I never really trust anything windows anymore. Windows ME was specifically to break loadlin. And IE always seemed to do strange things to my linux bookmarks. Fortunately networking and even printing in linux is much better these days so I haven't really needed to run windows since 2002.

I've never downloaded anything from distrowatch, but I doubt they'd compress iso images. If you're in doubt, go to a distro's official home page and download it from there. What distro are you trying to burn?

It looks to me like you don't have any CD burner software installed (except for the build in one in Windows7) since you keep referring to Windows7 and not any burning software. Download a free CD burner like CDBurnerXP (don't let the XP fool you, it works on Windoze7 too), install it and take it from there. During the installation process the problem of extension association should be fixed too.

Kind regards,

Eric