What Are ISO Images?
ISO images, are actual bit to bit images of a Linux distro's CD-ROM, usually similar or in many cases the same to the version you can buy.
This means they are around 700 MB to download, so you need to have plenty of disk space, and a fast Internet connection to download them. You can download them on a modem, but prepare for it to take a while.
In an effort to make these CD's bootable, and Mac OS friendly, they use also use a subformat known as MkHybrid -- which is a Hybrid of HFS and ISO filesystem (giving you both UNIX and Mac OS features on one disk).
Mounting the Image
Once you have downloaded the ISO, you will find a generic document icon, where you saved it, named what you called it (often something like linuxppc2000.iso).
This means that Mac OS doesn't know what type of file it is, as it was generated inside of Linux, which doesn't add Info fork data, that tells the Finder what type of data the file contains.
So don't try to double click, Mac OS will just give you a long list of apps that could possibly open it (if you have Easy Open extension installed) or tell you that the apps that created that Document could not be found.
Instead, locate Apple's Disk Copy program. If you don't have it on your Hard Drive, look for it on a Mac OS CD ROM or from Apple.
Drag and drop the ISO image to Disk Copy. This will open it with Disk Copy, which will then procceed to mount the image on the desktop.
From here, you can copy the files you need off the disk image, or you can read below on how to copy it to a CD-ROM.
Burning a CD-ROM
Once you have the image mounted on your Desktop, you can procceed to burning it.
Open up Adaptec Toast 4.x or Higher. Most CD-R(W) drives come with this program.
Drag the disk icon (not the icons in the folder, but the entire mounted disk icon), onto the Adaptec Toast window.
Warning: Do not open up the mounted ISO image, and try to drag and drop the seperate files and folders into Toast. This will result in a CD-ROM with incomplete filenames (the CD probably has file names longer then 32 characters) which will result in a failed install, and the CD won't be bootable.
Adaptec Toast will notice you are copying an entire disk on the CD-R(W), and will therefore copy (bit for bit) the mounted filesystem to the CD-R(W).
Click Burn. Make sure not to set the burning speed not up to high, or you may get buffer underruns when burning.
Good Luck.
Send Comments, Questions, etc. to Andrew Arthur, aarthur@imaclinux.net.
