ISO image
An ISO image (as prescribed by the ISO, the International Organization for Standardization) is a file that represents a one-to-one copy of a specific computer filesystem, most widely used for the compact disc medium (i.e an entire CD or DVD-ROM).It is for this reason that many Linux, BSD, or other free operating systems are distributed for download using the ISO image -- file permissions and other filesystem metadata is not lost in the transfer.
One can download an ISO image from the Internet. It is recommended because of a CD's large data capacity that a user wishing to download an ISO image of a CD to use a download manager.
After downloading, one can burn these images to a CD. If the burned CD includes an operating system that doesn't need to be installed to the hard disk (this is, can be used from the CD), it is sometimes called a LiveCD. Such an example of these are the Gnoppix, Knoppix and Morphix Linux distributions.
See also: Disk image, Nero Burning ROM
External links
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