Stupid Question Time: Operating System ISOs
Stupid question, just curious if this is weighed much and what the rationale is.
ISO files (to my possibly flawed knowledge) are basically images meant for optical media, and they are used heavily by operating systems to provide a bootable live or installation environment.
Why is this still so prevalent and the primary method of doing things?
Optical media is increasingly not used in today's landscape. It likely takes time and effort to develop and maintain a live installation environment. Most machines don't have a drive onboard anymore except legacy devices which would be dwindling over the years, lasers burning out, etc.
Most people use a flash drive or similar disk image to get things going, is there a more efficient method to maybe use for this? Is a .img potentially better or something else?
Do we just like .iso's because you can just DD them most of the time or use utilities like Ventoy?
Not actually desperate for people to change things around, it just strikes me as surprising that we don't have a more efficient method yet in 2025, but I'm not knowledgeable enough to develop one myself so I'm not qualified to say this should be changed or to recommend an alternative. Just looking to broaden my knowledge/understanding.
Len Kotarski likes this.
Len Kotarski
in reply to That Guy • •Not sure myself. But my best guess is, if it ain't broke, don't fix it :b
Not that I have any kind of skill to act upon this, but what kind of efficient changes would you like to see? ISO seems straightforward to me.