Tools to Manage ISO Files on Linux

A while ago we showed you what you can do with PDF files on Linux. Today we take a look at ISO files and Linux applications which you can use to work with them. ISO files are also known as ISO images or disk images because they are usually used to create backup copies of hard disks or optical media (CDs and DVDs).

An ISO file is in fact an archive which stores files in uncompressed format (unlike, for instance, ZIP or RAR archives), which means that an ISO image of a DVD is an exact, “mirror” copy of its contents. You're probably familiar with this type of media – chances are that you installed your Linux distribution from an ISO image. You can create ISO images from any type of file on your computer and burn them to CDs or DVDs. Existing ISO images can be mounted, extracted, and modified (if necessary) thanks to a number of user-friendly Linux tools.

Mount & Preview

In order to access and modify the contents of an ISO file, you can mount it as a device. Linux will treat it as a separate file system (albeit a virtual one), and allow you to browse the files as you would normally browse the directory structure of your hard drive. The fastest way to mount an ISO image is via the command line.

First, you have to choose the mount point – the folder into which you will mount the ISO. This can be an existing folder, or you can create a new one (usually in /media or /mnt). Note that this requires root user permissions.

mkdir /mnt/foldername

mount -o loop /path-to-iso-file /mnt/foldername

The -o parameter (also called switch or flag) enables you to add keywords for options (such as loop). The loop option stands for loop device, which makes the mounted ISO image behave like a filesystem (like your hard disk or a USB device, for example) and lets you browse and modify files on it. If your ISO image is in the Desktop folder, you'll need to paste the whole path to it after the loop keyword, like this:

/home/username/Desktop/myisoimage.iso

To unmount the image, use the umount command:

umount /mnt/foldername

Both umount and mount offer plenty of options. You can learn more about them in the man pages (by typing man umount and man mount in the console).

As always, there are GUI solutions to every Linux problem. This time they're called Gmount-ISO and Furius ISO Mount.

Gmount-ISO (Gnome ISO Mounter) is a tiny single-purpose utility that will let you mount and unmount ISO files with a single click. You only have to select the image file and the desired mount point; Gmount-ISO will take care of the rest.

Gmount-ISO interface

If you want more options in a simple package, Furius ISO Mount might be perfect for you. Apart from ISO images, this application can mount IMG, BIN, NRG and MDF files. It also supports burning ISO and IMG files to optical media and automatic unmounting.

Furius ISO Mount

Another way to preview ISO files is by using a file archiver, like File Roller and PeaZip. The former only supports viewing the content of ISO images, while PeaZip can extract selected files or the entire ISO image. Krusader File Manager also comes with some support for ISO files; similarly to PeaZip, it lets you browse and extract content from ISO images.

Create, Burn, Extract & More

The applications we've covered so far might be too humble for your needs. If that's the case, consider AcetoneISO and ISO Master – two very powerful tools with many useful and advanced features.

With ISO Master you'll be able to open ISO and NRG files and navigate through the files and folders they contain. You can sort them by name or size, extract them, add new files or delete existing ones. Changes can be saved only in the ISO format, which means you'll have to export NRG files to ISO if you want to modify them.

ISO Master makes creating a new ISO image as easy as pie. Simply select “New” from the Image menu, add files and folders and save the image under a chosen name. If the ISO image has to be bootable, choose the appropriate boot record type from the BootRecord menu before saving.

ISO Master interface

AcetoneISO boasts even more options and is often referred to as the Daemon Tools equivalent for Linux. This mighty app can mount ISO, MDF, BIN and NRG files and burn ISO images to optical discs. It supports file conversion from BIN, MDF, NRG, DAA, IMG, DMG, CDI and other formats to ISO, as well as extracting content from them. You can use it to create ISO images from files and folders on your computer, as well as to encrypt and decrypt existing images.

AcetoneISO options

Another great feature is the ability to split big image files, or to merge two or more smaller ones. It's important to note that Acetone ISO does not support multi-sector images (those with multiple partitions or tracks), and it does not emulate copy protection when mounting images.

Other interesting features not related to ISO images are video conversion from a number of formats (including FLV to AVI), extracting sound from video files, and downloading videos from YouTube.

Of course, ISO images can be created using a few simple console commands – dd (Disk Dump, part of the coreutils package) and mkisofs, which comes in the cdrtools package.

dd has an extremely simple syntax:

dd if=/dev/dvd of=/home/username/Desktop/dvd.iso

where if stands for input file, and of for output file. This will create a copy of the currently mounted DVD and save it as an ISO file in the designated folder. Be very careful when using dd because it requires root permissions and can destroy the data on your disk if you reverse the order of if and of parameters.

You can use mkisofs to create ISO images from any folder on your computer. Just type:

mkisofs -o my.iso /home/username/folder

in the directory where you want the ISO image to be created. The -o switch lets you choose the name for your image (in this case, my.iso). This tiny utility has a ton of options; you can read more about them in the About. com Linux Command Library.

When you've created an ISO image using command line tools, you can simply make it into a CD or DVD with your favorite burning application. The three most popular - K3b, Brasero and xfburn – support burning ISO images to optical media.

Ivana Isadora Devcic is a freelance writer, copyeditor and translator fluent in English, Swedish, Croatian and Norwegian. She's a Linux user and KDE fan interested in web design, productivity and personal branding. Ivana tweets about the world around her as @skadinna.