ISO image

An ISO image is an informal term for a disk image of an ISO 9660 file system. More loosely, it refers to any optical disk image, even a UDF image.

Related Topics:
Disk image - ISO 9660 - File system - Optical disk - UDF

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As is typical for disk images, in addition to the data files that are contained in the ISO image, it also contains all the filesystem metadata (boot code, structures, and attributes). All of this information is contained in a single file. These properties make it an attractive alternative to physical media for the distribution of software which requires this additional information as it is simple to retrieve over the net.

Related Topics:
Files - Filesystem - Metadata - Boot - Media - Software - Net

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Some of the common uses include the distribution of operating systems, such as Linux or BSD systems, and LiveCDs.

Related Topics:
Operating system - Linux - BSD - LiveCD

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Most CD/DVD authoring utilities can deal with ISO images: Producing them either by copying the data from existing media or generating new ones from existing files, or using them to create a copy on physical media.

Related Topics:
CD/DVD authoring - Media

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Most operating systems (including Mac OS, BSD, Linux and Windows, with third-party tools) allow these images to be mounted as if they were physical discs, making them somewhat useful as a universal archive format.

Related Topics:
Mac OS - BSD - Linux - Windows - Mount - Disc

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Console emulators, such as ePSXe, and many other emulators that read from CD, are able to run ISO/BIN (and other similar formats) instead of running directly from the CD drive. Better performance is achieved by running an ISO since there is no ?waiting for drive to be ready.?

Related Topics:
Console emulator - EPSXe

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CD vs ISO (from emulation point of view)

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• CD

Pros

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