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Why ISO was retired (2021)

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Re: Why ISO was retired (2021)

#41

Post by bastawhiz »

gregw2 wrote: post #40

I dunno, I used to use ISO linux images because they were write-once and assuming I had a trusted source of the ISO or system writing the ISO, I didn't have to worry about the Linux system getting compromised and I could just run Linux off a CD/DVD. I'm surprised that didn't come up in the original article or comments here on HN. (I am aware of course of non-persistent in-memory worms, and the fact things can persist…

If you write an ISO to a flash drive is it read only? Obviously optical media is inherently read only, but I haven't owned a machine with an optical drive in almost fifteen years and I don't have confidence any way of running an image (aside from a hypervisor) would preserve that property.

Re: Why ISO was retired (2021)

#42

Post by coin »

babarock wrote: post #29
zgluck wrote: post #20

The original https://www.iso.org/ is still here, btw. "Why ISO[-9660 format] images relases were retired from EasyOS" would have have been a more suitable headline. I kind of miss the times when hackers were sticklers for details.

Different ISO ;)

Article is mistitled. ISO the organization is still alive and well. ISO9660 is lesser used now.

Re: Why ISO was retired (2021)

#43

Post by somat »

donatj wrote: post #25

I've always wondered, why are CDs a specific ISO file system and not just whatever the intended target can read (FAT32 / HFS(+)) like other media? Is it just that the write once nature of the media makes pre-composing the file system a pain?

The sgi irix cd's were in their EFS filesystem. It made reading sgi disks on other systems a bit of a challenge.

At one time I was tempted into putting a UFS(the dvd filesystem) format on a flash drive, the theory was it would be a better filesystem than FAT and be readable in any OS. The problem was nobody ever implamented write routines for their UFS implementation, they were all read only. Sort of understandable as the key driver of UFS was a read only medium(the dvd). but it dashed my dreams of using it as a cross platform filesystem.

Re: Why ISO was retired (2021)

#44

Post by theamk »

marcosdumay wrote: post #6
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…

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…

ISO is great at keeping things immutable - most OSes auto-mount inserted USB sticks r/w by default, so your ext4 USB rescue stick cam be broken by one accidental mouse drag, or by a typo in "rm" command. And even if you fix one OS to not mount it r/w, it will still happen if you insert into your friend's PC.

On the other hand, ISO is guaranteed to be immutable, you need some real effort to break it.

Re: Why ISO was retired (2021)

#45

Post by [deleted] »

astrodust wrote: post #26
donatj wrote: post #25

I've always wondered, why are CDs a specific ISO file system and not just whatever the intended target can read (FAT32 / HFS(+)) like other media? Is it just that the write once nature of the media makes pre-composing the file system a pain?

You're lucky it's standardized at all. Before the ISO specification each and every CD-ROM released had its own format, drivers, and headaches.

[deleted]

Re: Why ISO was retired (2021)

#46

Post by yellowapple »

> On the other hand, a live-CD type of distribution, like Puppy Linux, it is an issue, because the "save file" can only be created on some other drive, usually an internal drive. Wouldn't it be nice if the "save file" or "save folder" could be on the USB-stick, or rather it would be nice if you had that choice.

I'm about 98.69% sure this is easy to fix with any ol' partition editor. Even if it wasn't, the absolute worst-case scenario here for a fully-in-ramdisk distro (my experience is with Damn Small and Tiny Core, but I'm sure Puppy and EasyOS can do this, too) is to just boot into such a distro and reinstall the whole OS on top of the USB stick; everything's in RAM already anyway, so with such distros you can reformat or even unplug the stick once you're booted up.

Re: Why ISO was retired (2021)

#47

Post by yellowapple »

mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote: post #15
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 part…

So basically the same deal as Tiny Core Linux, then.

Re: Why ISO was retired (2021)

#48

Post by Tijdreiziger »

cvccvroomvroom wrote: post #33
kn100 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ventoy is a magic tool that does exactly this, if you weren't aware.

I recall there's another one also. They replace the iOdd virtual CD USB device in all virtualized cases. For physical servers, the iOdd virtual ISO USB drive is very handy.

I have a similar drive enclosure from Zalman, which takes a 2.5" SATA drive.

Re: Why ISO was retired (2021)

#49

Post by yellowapple »

tjoff wrote: post #7
dale_glass wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems easy. Import it as a disk image, and that's it. I just tried under libvirt. It doesn't work as a virtual CD, so just add a virtio disk and point it at the image.

For sure when that works that is easy. I don't have that option and don't know how common it is in actual hypervisors and not desktop VM software.

If it works for libvirt then that's at least one pathway for an "actual hypervisor" (in this case KVM).

Re: Why ISO was retired (2021)

#50

Post by yellowapple »

arccy wrote: post #34
bombolo wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To make a windows bootable USB you need windows. Doing dd (or cp) will make a device that boots the installer but ultimately will fail to install.

it's possible, just not straightforward this worked for me a few days ago https://nixaid.com/bootable-usb-windows-linux/

WoeUSB-ng worked last time I needed a Windows install USB: https://github.com/WoeUSB/WoeUSB-ng
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