A Good Cd / Dvd Rom Iso Server

Hi all,

I've been using the latest version of SUSE for a few weeks now and I'm VERY impressed. I've played with Linux before (Fedora, Unbuntu) and had mixed results to be honest. I think one of the reasons I'm having a good experience now is that I've bought a new desktop and all the hardware was supported by SUSE, out of the box, with no problems. Whereas in my previous Linux experience I've had loads of problems getting hardware (wireless cards, PCI video, etc) to work properly due to a lack of drivers (for my old kit), etc.

Anyway, I digress, I have a CD wallet full of CD-ROMS (install CDs) and was wondering if there is a free "CD Server" type application, where I can convert these install CD's to ISO's and have the ISO's "mounted" on my network so I can install from them from other network attached devices? Just like a CD server.

DO's this software exist?

Well, to create iso's you can use K3B which should be in the OSS repo. Then to mount it you can use the mount command. Should be somehting like this:

mount -o loop -t iso9660 file.iso /mount/point

Don't forget to make sure you substitute file.iso for the real iso name and /mount/point for the place you would like to mount the iso to.

you can just create the ISO images and dump them ANYWHERE on the network, share that folder out (eg by using samba) and then access the ISO images from that share on the target computer(s) using 69's code above.

i can confirm this works as i have an "iso-images" share on one of my servers and use the same command to mount them when needed.

if you're wanting to use the iso images on a windows pc, you can get a program called "daemon tools" which emulates another cd/dvd drive, you then right click on the ISO image and "mount to E: with daemon tools" (E: being the virtual cd/dvd drive). Double-clicking on the drive in windows explorer executes the autorun.inf as if the disc was physically inserted in a drive.

happy days