writing to vs. burning a CD from .iso??
 

I am trying to burn some bootdisks from a Mandrake .iso. On this RH9 system, when I put in a blank CD a window called burn:/// opens up and I can just click and drag stuff there to be copied. This works fine but it does not extract/expand the .iso so that we have a filesystem. I just get another copy of the .iso. I am in the process of installing K3b and have heard that this will work. Does anyone know how to do what I am trying to do with the stock RH9 burner? I also have Gnometoaster but can't for the life of me figure out how to get it to do anything at all. Any ideas? Are there other burners out there that don't require the Qt libs that I am installing now or that are know to do what I want? Thanks.

The command line is your friend...

# CD burning copying ripping info
Is it configured and what is the device? Command this to find out:
cdrecord -scanbus
Adding an IDE CD-Writer to Linux
CD Writing HOWTO
Burning CDs on Linux
# Burn an ISO to disk
cdrecord -v speed=<burning speed> dev=<your device> /path/to/foo.iso
# Burn from disk to disk
cdrecord -v dev=<your device> speed=<burning speed> -isosize /dev/cdrom
#ISO information
isoinfo -i -d /dev/cdrom
# Generate an ISO from a directory.
mkisofs -vrTJUV "Label" -o foo.iso /path/to/directory
# Generate an ISO from a CD
dd if=/dev/cdrom of=foo.iso
# cdparanoia - search for a drive with reporting of autosense:
cdparanoia -vsQ
# Rip a complete audio CD with cdparanoia
cdparanoia -B "1-"
Linux MP3 CD Burning mini-HOWTO
# Convert mp3 to wav with lame
for i in *.mp3; do lame --decode $i `basename $i .mp3`.wav; done
# Burn a CD from wav files
cdrecord -v -audio -pad speed=<burning speed> dev=<your device> /path/to/*.wav
# Erase a CDRW
cdrecord -v dev=<your device> speed=<burning speed> blank=fast

If you want to copy something from an ISO, just mount it as if it were a CD
# Mount CD iso images
mkdir /mnt/iso
mount /path/to/foo.iso /mnt/iso -t iso9660 -o ro,loop=/dev/loop0

I should have mentioned that I tried it via command line cdrecord as well and got another copy of the iso file. If I try to mount it and go to the dir in which I've set the mountpoint all there is there is a copy of the .iso. I mean this seems so simple for everyone else I think I may be missing something fundamental. The md5s on these files check out. If I should be able to boot from the .iso file then my bios/grub doesn't want to do it, I've tried repeatedly.

Just exactly what are you attempting to do? Are you trying to make a boot floppy for install? Burn a bootable CD? Copy files from an iso?

trying to burn a bootable CD so that I can use these isos to install Mandrake. Somehow, I need to extract the files on the .iso and burn that file system to a CD...I think:scratch:

Are you saying your computer will not boot from a bootable CD? If you can boot from a CD, then burn the 3 ISOs to CDs like this:

cdrecord -v speed=<burning speed> dev=<your device> /path/to/foo.iso;eject

Change the <burning speed> to a number that your burner can handle and for <your device>, use the result of cdrecord -scanbus.

This will burn bootable CDs for your install.

If you can't install from the CD, you can make a boot floppy and install from the iso files on the hard drive. Directions are in the Quick Startup Guide.

But I successfully burned 2 CDs that have faithful copies of the .isos on them and yet, when I look at the disc I do not see the file system that I think I should...I think I understand that by using mkisofs and then burning this isofs I should then have a bootable disc. Not so. Just the same .iso. I read the HOW-TO available by link at LinuxISO.org as well as the FAQ for "when I look at my CD all I see is a copy of the .iso and not a file system" and the implication is that when I do mkisofs and mount this isofs I should see a file system and not simply an ISO. If I am reading this wrong then something else is keeping me from booting from these discs. If not(the HOWTO is written from the point of view of making an isofs from a directory of files) then I need to know how to extract the fs from the iso and then burn it to disc. I am really not sure what I am missing.

AHA! You aren't burning the ISO, you are making an ISO file of the ISO to burn to CD, so you see the ISO when you look at it. The Mandrake ISO files are already in ISO format, so you don't need to create an ISO of the ISO file. :D

You don't need to run mkisofs, just burn each Mandrake ISO straight to CD.

Mount the original ISO and see if you don't see the files.

mount /path/to/foo.iso /mnt/iso -t iso9660 -o ro,loop=/dev/loop0

OK the files are there in the original iso...so should I do cdrecord from this mountpoint?

No, do it like I have said several times.

cdrecord -v speed=<burning speed> dev=<your device> /path/to/foo.iso;eject

Change the <burning speed> to a number that your burner can handle and for <your device>, use the result of cdrecord -scanbus.

This will burn bootable CDs for your install.
For instance, here is what I get:My device is 0,0,0 and my burner will burn at 8X.

I have an ISO located at /pub/isos/KNOPPIX_V3.3-2003-09-22-EN.iso that I wish to burn.

I put a blank CD-R in my burner and issue this command:When the CD ejects, I will have a bootable CD of knoppix.

OK, I will try it again(I did it exactly that way yesterday) but when I mount /dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom and then look at /mnt/cdrom what I see is Mandrake92-cd1-inst.i586.iso, not the same files I see when mounting the original...could it be that something went wrong in the burn?

Well, it works for me in Red Hat 7.3, Mandrake 9.0 and Gentoo, so I think you burnt your iso of the iso. Toss the one you created and use the downloaded ISOs.

Thanks for your help...this first disk now looks good. Pretty sure something went wrong with the burn yesterday.:cool: