QNX Technical Articles
Making CDs and DVDs from ISO files
What is an ISO?
An ISO is a file that contains a CDROM or DVD disk image, in this case one of our QNX product distributions. This disk image is an exact copy of our distribution on a CDROM or DVD media. When burned as a disk image, the .iso file is turned into a duplicate of the original media.
How do I use a QNX ISO to install a QNX product on my system?
If you have a CD/DVD burner and software that can burn .iso or CDROM disk images, you can burn the .iso to a CD or DVD medium as appropriate. You can then use this medium to install the QNX product on your system. There are many good free and for-purchase CD-burning programs available. A simple search on the Internet will provide you with a lot of choice; we don't recommend any one program.
Some of the many examples of such programs include:
- on Windows:
- Ahead Nero
- Roxio Easy CD Creator
- cdrecord
- on Linux, Solaris, and QNX Neutrino:
- cdrecord
To reduce the chance of producing bad or marginal CDs or DVDs that some machines might have difficulty reading, we recommend that you burn your product CDs at a low recording speed. However, some specific drive and media combinations may be unreliable at certain speeds, so if you find that the media are not burning successfully, experiment with different recording speeds. If the burning software has an option for verifying the disk, make sure it's enabled.
Testing your media
On a UNIX-like operating system (Neutrino, Linux, Solaris), you can use the cksum utility to do a checksum on the CD or DVD, using the block-special file representing the CD/DVD drive (the exact mount point will vary from OS to OS). Compare the resulting value to the checksum posted in myQNX's Read More section for the ISO file.
Note: Some CD- and DVD-writing software may write the ISO in such a way as to cause an I/O error when the end of the CD is reached when reading the block-special file. We have found that the cdrecord program, for instance, can cause this unless you specify the -dao option.
On Windows you won't have this direct checksum ability; however, if the ISO is for a Windows host, you can just try installing the product. Some of our products that are intended for installation on Windows, Linux, and Solaris host machines use Installshield installers, which have integrity checking built-in. If the actual product archive is corrupt on the CD, in most cases you won't be able to install the product.