dd versus mkisofs

[Glenn Pedersen]

Hi, I have been happily burning cd's under Linux for a while now and have
just discovered a new way to copy cd.

Normally I would use mkisofs to make an image and then burn the image.

I found out while lurking in various linux newsgroups that you can also
use dd. ie dd if=/dev/scd0 of=/temp/image.img
and then burn the image.img file as per normal

What I would like to know is what is the difference? Should I always use
dd intead of mkisofs?
Thanks for any comments.

Glenn Pedersen
glen...@optusnet.com.au
ICQ 1188045

[Jason Stokes]

On Thu, 23 Dec 1999 17:18:38 +1000, Glenn Pedersen
<gl...@optusnet.com.au> wrote:

>
>Hi, I have been happily burning cd's under Linux for a while now and have
>just discovered a new way to copy cd.
>
>Normally I would use mkisofs to make an image and then burn the image.
>
>I found out while lurking in various linux newsgroups that you can also
>use dd. ie dd if=/dev/scd0 of=/temp/image.img
>and then burn the image.img file as per normal
>
>What I would like to know is what is the difference? Should I always use
>dd intead of mkisofs?

dd is the "data duplicator." It's a low level system tool that can be
used to write "raw disk images." When you use it, it writes the
complete disk image to a file (every track and sector on the disk) or
to a device.

It can be used as a "copy" command for CD-ROMs. But it only works for
copying disks. If you want to build your own CD-ROM from a set of
directories on your hard disk, you'll need to use mkisofs (or similar.)

--
Jason Stokes: js...@bluedog.apana.org.au