Some handy command line tools to burn CDs/DVDs and work with .iso files:

Burning .iso files:

Basic usage of wodim (formally know as cdrecord):

wodim dev=/dev/DEVICE image.iso

Replace DEVICE with the name of your drive, e.g. hda. You might need to be root/use sudo or have the appropriate permissions to access the device.

If your drive supports BurnFree add: -v driveropts=burnfree

Generating .iso files

Add content of directory to an iso:

genisoimage -o image.iso directory/

Some advanced options that might be useful:

  • -R : Enable Rock Ridge records (or use -r, read the genisoimage man page for info)
  • -joliet-long : Add support for filenames up to 103 chars (breaks joliet specification)
  • -graft-points : Maps a directory to another, e.g. specifying “-graft-points ‘/=/home/myusername'” the contents of /home/myusername is mapped to / on the iso

To burn directly to CD/DVD

By combining genisoimage and wodim, you can burn files directly:

genisoimage directory/ | wodim dev=/dev/hda -

Note the missing -o for genisoimage, and the “-” argument for wodim

Mounting .iso files

This requires root rights:

mount -o loop -t iso9660 image.iso /mnt/image/