Media Basics
When you connect a medium, such as a CD, DVD, hard drive, or flash drive to your computer, Fedora automatically recognizes it and makes it available for use. This process is called mounting the drive. An icon is placed on your desktop and in the Places menu in GNOME. On the KDE desktop, an icon is placed in the bottom panel next to the workspace switcher. Additionally, the medium's icon is placed to the left of the file display window in Kickoff Application Launcher > File Manager.
You should unmount a medium before physically removing it from your computer. To do this in GNOME, right-click on the device's icon and select Unmount Volume or Eject, depending on what type of media you are using. During this process any remaining changes to the data on the media is written to the device, allowing for its safe removal without data loss. Removing the medium without first unmounting could cause data to be corrupted; if this is the case, you will not be able to recover your data in the future.
There are several multimedia applications available for the Fedora desktop. These applications will run in most desktop environments, including GNOME and KDE. To install the software packages listed on this page which not already installed on your computer, please read the chapter on managing software. You can install applications by either using the PackageKit application or on the command line by using Yum.
To begin, make sure there is sufficient free space available on the USB media. There is no need to repartition or reformat your media. It is always a good idea to back up important data before performing sensitive disk operations.
ISO Image
An ISO image is an archive file, also known as a disk image of an optical disc, in a format defined by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). Iso image files typically have an .iso extension. The name iso is taken from the ISO 9660 file system used with CD-ROM media, but an iso image can also contain Universal Disk Format (UDF) file system because UDF is backward-compatible with ISO 9660.
an ISO image includes all the data of files contained on the archived CD/DVD. They are stored in an uncompressed format.
In addition to data of the files it also contains all the file system metadata, including boot code, structures, and attributes. ISO images do not support multi-track, thus they cannot be used for audio CDs, VCD, and hybrid audio CDs.
Writing CDs or DVDs
Fedora includes support for writing to CDs and DVDs. This means that you can permanently burn files to the CD/DVD for backup, file transport, or any other reason.
Not all optical drives (CD or DVD drives) are equipped to burn new media. An easy way to check whether that you can burn optical media is to look at the front of your disc drive. It should indicate the drive's capabilities. You can also look up the model of your drive online. An even easier way is to simply try burning a disc; chances are, if you can't select the option for burning discs, it's not a problem with Fedora; your drive simply does not support this operation.
Using CD/DVD Creator to Burn Media in GNOME
CD/DVD Creator burns CDs and DVDs.
- To open Select Places > CD/DVD Creator.
To create a data disc:
- Drag the files and folders, that you want to write to CD or DVD, to the CD/DVD Creator folder.
- Insert a writeable CD or DVD into your writer device. Doing this step first usually opens the CD/DVD Creator automatically. If not, you can configure the CD/DVD Creator to open automatically by going to System > Preferences > Hardware > Multimedia Systems Selector > and on the Audio and Video tabs select Autodetect from the drop-down menu.
- Click the [Write to Disc] button, or choose File > Write to CD/DVD.
- Here you can choose write to your CD/DVD or to a File Image. An image file (ISO) is a normal file that will be saved to your computer and you can write to a CD later.
- To write a disc image to a CD/DVD, right-click on the Disc Image File, then choose Open with CD/DVD Creator from the popup menu. When you burn a a disc image the Disc name and Write speed are not available.
- If you are copying regular data you can type a name for your CD/DVD in the Disc name window and select a Write speed from the drop-down under Write Options. You will also see the size of your data that will be written to the disc.
- Press the [Write] button to burn your data to the CD/DVD.
To make a copy of a CD or DVD:
- Insert the disc you want to copy.
- Choose Places > CD/DVD Creator from the top panel menu bar.
- Right-click on the CD icon, and choose Copy Disc.
- Follow the Write to Disc dialogue as above.
If you have only one write drive the program will first create a file on your computer. The original disk will be ejected, and ask you to change it for a blank disk to copy on.
The Help manual can be accessed by pressing the [F1] key or clicking Help > Contents on the top menu bar.
Using K3b to Burn Media in KDE
K3b is not installed by default from the Live-CD or the DVD. If you do not have access to the Internet, you can use the Fedora DVD to install K3b.
After you install K3b, using one of the methods described above, launch the program by clicking the Kickoff Application Launcher > Applications > Multimedia > K3b.
When the application opens the action buttons are displayed at the bottom of the window:
| File:Docs Drafts DesktopUserGuide Media k3baudiocd.png | To create a New Audio CD Project |
| File:Docs Drafts DesktopUserGuide Media k3bdatacd.png | To create a New Data CD Project |
| File:Docs Drafts DesktopUserGuide Media k3bdatadvd.png | To create a New Data DVD Project |
| File:Docs Drafts DesktopUserGuide Media k3bcopycd.png | To Copy a CD |
To add files to your K3b project, drag the files into the project pane at the bottom of the screen. Everything in this project pane will be burned to your optical medium.
- When you are ready to burn the files or folders to disk click the [Burn] button.
- To burn an ISO image file, use the Tools > Burn DVD
ISOImage. - Navigate to and select the
.isoimage, then click the [Start] button.
Using GnomeBaker in Gnome
GnomeBaker is not installed by default from the Live-CD or the DVD. If you do not have access to the Internet, you can use the Fedora DVD to install GnomeBaker.
Launch the program by clicking Applications > Sound and Video > GnomeBaker.
In GnomeBaker there are three primary 3 buttons in the bottom pane of the programs window:
| File:Docs Drafts DesktopUserGuide Media gnomebaker-data-dvd.png | Data DVD Use this to burn files and folders to a DVD . |
| File:Docs Drafts DesktopUserGuide Media gnomebaker-data-cd.png | Data CD Use this to burn files and folders to a CD. |
| File:Docs Drafts DesktopUserGuide Media gnomebaker-audio-cd.png | Audio CD Use this to create an audio CD. |
- To burn a specific file to a CD, or DVD, click the Data CD, or Data DVD, action button, and then drag and drop the files, or entire folders, from the top pane into the bottom pane. You can also highlight the files, or folders, and click the [+Add] button to add them to the window.
- To burn an ISO image file select Tools > Burn DVD Image from the top menu.
- If the
.isofile is for a CD, choose Burn CD Image. - Navigate to the image, select it, and click the OK button.
- Click the [Start] button in the next window to confirm burning your disc image.
- If the
- Follow these steps to create an Audio CD.
Making USB Media
A Live image (.iso) can be used in either a Windows or Linux system to make bootable USB media.
Any existing data on the media is not harmed. It is always a good idea to back up important data before performing sensitive disk operations.
In a few cases with oddly formatted or partitioned USB media, the image writing may fail.
USB Image Creation in Windows
- Download the Windows liveusb-creator program at http://fedorahosted.org/liveusb-creator.
- Follow the instructions given at the site and in the liveusb-creator program to create the bootable USB media.
To begin, make sure there is sufficient free space available on the USB media. There is no need to repartition or reformat your media. It is always a good idea to back up important data before performing sensitive disk operations.
USB media often comes in the form of flash devices sometimes called pen drives, thumb disks, or keys; or as an externally connected hard disk device. Almost all media of this type is formatted as a vfat file system. You can create bootable USB media on media formatted as ext2, ext3, or vfat.
USB Image Creation in Fedora
You can install liveusb-creater by clicking on System > Administration > Add/Remove Software, then search for liveusb-creator, and install. Or you can install the application from Terminal with the following command:
# yum install liveusb-creator
To open liveusb-creator click on Applications > System Tools > liveusb-creator.
- Enter your password.
- You have the option to Use existing Live CD, which allows you to choose an
.isofile from your computer, or Download Fedora where you can choose a file from the drop-down menu. - You can select your Target Device, such as your USB memory stick, to write the file to.
- The application also has an option to select how much Persistent Storage you want.
- After you have made all of your choices just press the [Create Live USB] button to start the process.
Visit the liveusb-creater web page for more information.
Another option to create a USB Image is:
This content is written for the more advanced user. It assumes that you are comfortable with the command line and have a relatively good knowledge of Linux terminology. It is probably not necessary to using Fedora as a desktop user, but can help a desktop user expand his or her knowledge base and face more complicated troubleshooting issues.
- Install the livecd-tools package on your system with the following command:
su -c 'yum -y install livecd-tools'
- Plug in your USB media.
- Find the device name for your USB media. If the media has a volume name, look up the name in /dev/disk/by-label, or use the findfs:
su -c 'findfs LABEL="MyLabel"'
- If the media does not have a volume name, or you do not know it, consult the /var/log/messages log for details:
su -c 'less /var/log/messages'
- Use the livecd-iso-to-disk command to write the ISO image to the media:
su -c 'livecd-iso-to-disk the_image.iso /dev/sdX1'
Replace sdX1 with the device name for the partition on the USB media. Most flash drives and external hard disks use only one partition. If you have changed this behavior or have oddly partitioned media, you may need to consult other sources of help.
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