Likewise we have asked Canonical (somewhat involved in the Freedom Toaster)
I didnt know what that was so for others: http://www.freedomtoaster.org https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_Toaster
whether they were aware of a USB burning Kiosk able to burn ISO files and add other files to the same USB drive. While we just started the discussion if someone knows anything or has any idea please share with us.
Too big a topic to solve in time for SFD this year. One would need to define aims tighter, eg define to what format, & discard the "and add other files to the same USB drive: as it drags in a mass of consequential questions: What do you want the OS of the copier to be ? (A divisive question in itself ;-) Linux ? BSD ? Other ? Which version ? But necessary as one gets heavily into assumptions of content & what it should boot, & which scripts to use for lots of .iso to usb methods, & the commands those scripts will call, use some of the (I presume) most non standard differential per Unix tools. eg try http://ixquick.com with freebsd .iso to usb for a hint of various methods. I use FreeBSD's mdconfig command to manually manipulate my .iso over to USB http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=mdconfig&sektion=8 http://www.freebsd.org/doc/handbook/disks-virtual.html#idp88166064 What target media format ? - Retain [or re-assert ?] (as typical from shop) USB with MBR for 4 OS, 1st slice using all blocks. - Or use as raw USB stick for 1 Bootable OS ? - What sort of boot ? (Linux nobbles disks' boot in ways BSD doesnt like) Stick to just MBR best, but note newer FreeBSD now likes Geom stuff, MS has aso long nobled the boot too. (Even CDROM .iso had 2 ways to boot). Boot opens a can of worms. FS on USB ? FAT32, Linux Ext23/ BSD-FFS NTFS, or several slices ? (you wrote you want to "add other files") I've made my own bootable FreeBSD stick, & grafted on other stuff, It's also easy with FreeBSD to write a bunch of cd9660 .iso files to a fat32 USB stick, then use the mdconfig command to convert each .iso to a node, & then mount each cdrom .iso image simultaneously. I presume its just as easy on Linux, with probably different commands. But ... The average end user recipient of such a stick probably will not have the skills to easily deal with it. A lot of recipients of cdroms couldn't do much more than insert & push reset ;-) If we make it too complex it wont be useful to more than a small minority who could do it all on a laptop with a few friends anyway using OS & other options of mutual choice, (& then they'll also be there to answer phone in same city when someone calls "Er, what was content order of that unique collection of extras you gave me, how do I extract install boot"). Distributing pictures or source archives, it's easy to write them as files on a FAT32 USB stick, But if we want to also deliver bootable op systems etc, we're best confining that to one per stick, with nothing else on stick. No problem using multiple stick anyway, cos people can re-use them, & force them to buy their own stick at shop round the corner ! If we give out sticks with free s/w, people will just erase the software & keep the stick anyway. Cheers, Julian -- Julian Stacey, BSD Unix Linux C Sys Eng Consultant, Munich http://berklix.com Reply below not above, like a play script. Indent old text with "> ". Send plain text. No quoted-printable, HTML, base64, multipart/alternative.