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.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 needs to 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 and Knoppix Linux distributions.
See also: Disk image, Nero Burning ROM
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