Burning an ISO-Bootable CD

This is so far off topic it's not even funny, but here it goes anyhow:

I want to get Knoppix running on my old comp. I need to burn the ISO file to a bootable CD, and Nero can't do it. Does anyone know a way to burn an ISO Bootable disk? I posted it on other forums and no one knew, so I was wondering if you guys could help. Thanks!

Might want to ask Catherine Omega (the goddess of all things computer) teehee.

There may be a way in NTI-CD Maker Pro or Adaptec.

Never tried to do this but remember something about it.

The bootability of the CD should be part of the ISO image.

It is true I havn't tried Nero, but with adaptect I do nothing special for a bootable vs nonbootable CD. I have burned knoppix as well as many other linux distros with bootable CDs with no issues whatsoever. Maybe the problem isn't the CD but is your computer setup to boot from the CD-rom?

No, it's just that Nero is really that stupid when it comes to boot CDs.

Thanks Charlie, you fixed it. Adaptec did the trick. Thank you all a ton!

Anytime welcome

Great!! Glad to hear you got your ISO burned.

When you install Knoppix, make sure you don't use the default language selections whitch is German (unless you are German of course).

Also, after you get it running, try running "kpackage", prefereably in the KDE environment and you will get a huge list of additional software that can be installed directly from Debian servers. You can also uninstall things you know you won't need from there too.

My favorite Linux is Debian, but Knoppix is ten times easier to install and is based on Debian so it's the best of both worlds. Have fun!

I guess if I have to ask what ISO means, I shouldn't be reading this......


-TK

It's a CD image -- a file containing the contents of a CD.

Ok now I got to go find it so I can see what it is

Knoppix- is this some sort of Linux flavor?

Well, technically ISO is the International Organization for Standardization (http://www.iso.ch/). Their standard numbered ISO9660 specifies the way files are put onto a filesystem suitable for a CD. Nowadays ISO is often used as shorthand for "ISO9660 filesystem image", or, in other words, a file containing the image of a CD containing files.

Hope that helps. ;)

ISO is a poor choice of "shorthand" names for a CD image. But the Linux people have re-enforced the bad choice by coming up with websites such as http://linuxiso.org where you can get just about any version of Linux (and some other things) in that format.

ISO9660 refers to the file format for creating PC compatible file systems on a CD. ISO is for International Standards Organization (I think) and 9660 to the fact that there are at least 9659 other such standards that they had already put out (its just a sequential number).

So, referring to a CD image of a particular Linux distribution as an "ISO" makes about as much sense as referring to the microwave oven in my kitchen as a "Planet Earth".

There are dozens (or maybe its hundreds) of Linux distributions. Anyone can make their own in fact as long as you don't use any sort of secret sauce to distinguish it from the rest (in other words you have to publish your source code somewhere). But they ARE a lot different. What distinguishes them is (a) what applications are bundled with them, (b) what the installation procedure consists of, and (c) what you have to go through to obtain and apply updates. Some of the ones you have heard of, Red Hat, Suse, and Mandrake, make their money by simplifying as much of the above as possible. Sometimes there is a "catch", like "no pay - no updates", or "no pay - no third party applications". So, selecting the distribution to start with is potentially the hardest part of getting started with Linux.

Debian is a bit special, in that it is maintained by volunteers. It was also the first I think that could be installed over the network by booting off of a couple of floppy disks. While most people use a CD these days, the concept is still the same in that the CD contains the basics and the applications are downloaded on demand rather than installing hundreds of programs that you may never use. Debian might be thought of as the Linux for purists, but it has always been the hardest Linux to install in the first place. Historically it required you to know a lot of details about what was in your PC, like chip-sets on your sound card and how much memory was on your video card and which IRQs each cards used.

Knoppix came along a year or so ago when a fellow by the name of Knopper wanted a Debian style Linux that didn't require so much work. He applied the same device detection techniques used by Windows, Red Hat, Suse etc and made a single CD Linux that boots up directly from the CD without asking you ANY questions about your PC. This got to be very popular as a diagnostic tool for fixing broken PCs (even Windows PCs) since it was capable of reading Windows partitions, copying files across the network and so on. At some point Knoppix got so popular that they added a true installation process, that asks you a bare minimum of questions to do a permanent install.

The great thing about Knoppix is that once you have the bootable CD (ISO!!) you can try it out on an existing Windows PC with no risk. By default it doesn't even use the hard drive (you have to have at least a 64M system to do this though). If you like what you see, you can then enter a single command, answer about 3 questions regarding formating your drive etc. and you are off to the races.

There is a option in Nero to burn a bootable ISO. I have a redhat one and it works fine. I forget exactly where it is now as I haven't done it in a while.

Knoppix is a flavor of Linux about 700MB that you can boot into. And if you liked Knoppix, you may like but probobly not as much http://www.lnx-bbc.com/ It's bootable from a business card CD so it's handy and dandy for Sys admins and newbs I guess.

Thanks for your tips Mac, they made my experience much enjoyable. I forgot what you said on my old computer though, it's all German now. Luckly it was a 450MhZ Dell, so it really doesn't matter. I got Red Hat running on that one now.