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Why ISO was retired (2021)

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Re: Why ISO was retired (2021)

#12

Post by tjoff »

bragr wrote: post #10
tjoff wrote: post #2

I have no idea how I would install EasyOS in my hypervisor. Well, I could probably boot from a Live linux ISO and then install it from there. And on actual hardware I can mount an ISO over IPMI but I would not immediately be able to install EasyOS that way. Also, the argument that you can store state isn't always an advantage. When I boot a Live ISO I never ever want to save anything, a clean state is one of the feat…

I skimmed the docs for multiple hypervisors (qemu, vmware, virtual box, hyper-v), it looks like only Qemu can directly boot the raw image, but everything else can convert the raw image to a native format and then boot it. It does take an extra, often command line only step to get it booting though which is less than ideal.

Assuming you even have access to the storage repository where your disk images reside. Which you don't immediately do in many cases.

Yes, for sure it can be done. But unless you have a habit of doing it it is likely going to be much quicker to boot from a live ISO and do it from there. And by then it all seems rather ridiculous.

Re: Why ISO was retired (2021)

#14

Post by tadfisher »

koito17 wrote: post #9

For the specific case of "burning" some Linux distro's installer to a USB drive, I've always found those .img files much easier to deal with than ISO files, simply because a single dd(1) invocation is all I need to "burn" the image onto my drive. I figure this is probably the vast majority of people who install Linux from a physical device rather than network booting. (I have dealt with PXE about a decade ago but I c…

That's the point of the "hybrid-iso" format; you can dd(1) it to a USB drive and it will boot, and you can burn it to a CD/DVD and it will boot.

P.S. there's no reason to use dd(1) for this; cp(1) works just as well and is usually faster, since it can autoconfigure the block size.

Re: Why ISO was retired (2021)

#15

Post by mtlmtlmtlmtl »

tjoff wrote: post #2

I have no idea how I would install EasyOS in my hypervisor. Well, I could probably boot from a Live linux ISO and then install it from there. And on actual hardware I can mount an ISO over IPMI but I would not immediately be able to install EasyOS that way. Also, the argument that you can store state isn't always an advantage. When I boot a Live ISO I never ever want to save anything, a clean state is one of the feat…

Never heard of EasyOS either so I looked it up. It's definitely in a pretty interesting niche:

In a traditional "full" installation, the filesystem occupies an entire partition, with the usual /etc, /bin, /usr, /proc, /sys, /tmp, etc. Easy does not install like this. Easy installs to hard drive in what we call frugal mode, which occupies just one folder in a partition, allowing to co-exist with whatever else the partition is used for. Installation is so simple: Just copy three files 'vmlinuz', 'initrd' and 'easy.sfs' into a folder in any ext4 partition, and that's it, Easy is installed. All that remains is to create an entry in the boot manager. [1]

Generally seems to be a highly stripped down, security focused Linux distro. No systemd, polkit, or even PAM. Heavily container oriented. Feels a bit like a lighter alternative to Qubes OS.

[1]: https://easyos.org/about/how-and-why-easyos-is-different.htm...

Re: Why ISO was retired (2021)

#16

Post by mixmastamyk »

tadfisher wrote: post #14
koito17 wrote: post #9

For the specific case of "burning" some Linux distro's installer to a USB drive, I've always found those .img files much easier to deal with than ISO files, simply because a single dd(1) invocation is all I need to "burn" the image onto my drive. I figure this is probably the vast majority of people who install Linux from a physical device rather than network booting. (I have dealt with PXE about a decade ago but I c…

That's the point of the "hybrid-iso" format; you can dd(1) it to a USB drive and it will boot, and you can burn it to a CD/DVD and it will boot. P.S. there's no reason to use dd(1) for this; cp(1) works just as well and is usually faster, since it can autoconfigure the block size.

Recently discovered ventoy: https://www.ventoy.net/

Loads a boot menu so you can pick from a number of .iso files dynamically. Just copy them to the first partition of the drive. Drag and drop if you want. Much more efficient than clobbering the filesystem with a dedicated tool every time.

Re: Why ISO was retired (2021)

#17

Post by arp242 »

programmer_dude wrote: post #13

What is a drive image? Is it a standard like ISO?

It's the result of 'cat /dev/sda >drive.img', basically. It's not that different from an "ISO image", which is the same except for the CD-ROM drive (I forgot which device name that is). An ISO image is just a "drive image" with the ISO9660 filesystem.

(Live images like this typically do have different bootloaders than your regular/dev/sda).

Re: Why ISO was retired (2021)

#19

Post by JohnFen »

tjoff wrote: post #8
marcosdumay wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, the article is correct that there is nothing unique to ISO on your comment. You can achieve all of that with an EXT-4 or NTFS filesystem too. Our tooling evolves in some strange ways. The only reason you want an ISO is because some software insists that it can't use a simpler FS the same way. It's like the software that insisted on saving things into floppy drivers even after no computer had them anymore. Of co…

Obviously, but with that logic the only unique thing with his solution is that it doesn't work well in the software ecosystem of our time. Not a great selling point. It is more than fine to opt at not supporting ISO, but the arguments put forward for this crusade are not convincing.

> the arguments put forward for this crusade are not convincing.

I agree. They read like "I don't want the additional work of creating ISOs" to me. Which, honestly, is plenty good justification for not making them on its own. There's no need for further justification.

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