Mounting CD images

I've read several threads about bin/cue files whilst trying to find out how to mount bin/cue files in linux - like daemon tools does in Windows. I found out how...

But first - why do so many people think bin files are so many different things!?? I've seen numerous times people just saying "use 'mount -t iso9660 some.bin /some/dir'" - this is crap! (in most circumstances...)

So i'd like to set the record straight:

bin/cue files are paired.

- The bin file is a raw image of a cd. A cd is composed of sectors (approx. 333,000 on a 74min cd) of 2352 bytes each. Different types of cd use different amounts of space in the sectors for actual data. A normal PC cd will use 2048 bytes per sector - the rest of each sector is given over to error correction. PSX/VCD cds use 2336 bytes, Audio cds use the full 2352 bytes with no error correction. Since bin files are raw data images, they are larger than iso files. The bin image can contain of any type of cd.

- The cue file is necessary, it specifies the mode that a cd image is written in (see elsewhere for description of mode) and the number of bytes that have been read into the image per sector (normally 2352). Also index is specified. A typical cue file looks like:

FILE "image-name.BIN" BINARY
TRACK 01 MODE1/2352
INDEX 01 00:00:00


Now for some useful info! The linux mount command will not mount a bin file. If you can mount a particular bin file then its an .iso file with a .bin extension. In my searches, I came across several handy utilities:

isodump - get it here: http://www-tet.ee.tu-berlin.de/soly...-0.05.02.tar.gz
isodump will dump iso images from bin (CloneCD img) files. Its not perfect, and failed on one or two i tested.

cdfs - get it here: http://www.elis.rug.ac.be/~ronsse/c....4.20-a.tar.bz2
cdfs is a file system kernel module. You can use it instead of iso9660 when you mount cds. It will show all the tracks on a cd as files in the mounted directory, i.e. A data cd may show a single .iso file, an audio cd will show some .wav files (yes, it adds the WAV header!!), and a mixed cd may show an .iso file and an apple hfs image, and some .wav files...! This thing rocks!!

And now for what you've all been waiting for - cdemu. This is another kernel module, but this one creates virtual cd drives, just like daemon tools. A userspace program allows you to link a bin/cue file pair to a virtual cd device, and then simply use the linux mount command to mount the virtual cd!! Oh yeah, its here: http://robert.private.outertech.com/virtualcd/

So, now you CAN mount .bin files!!!!

------------------------------
Richard Wellstead

http://www.uselinux.co.uk/
------------------------------

vmware-config.pl

vmware keeps asking you to reconfigure everytime you reboot? try this (taken from a redhat forum)


After you have run vmware-config.pl, do:

# cp -rp /dev/vm* /etc/udev/devices
# chkconfig vmware reset

You only need to do these once.

after compiling mplayer twinview full screen problem

After compiling and installing the mplayer, if you have a nvidia card with twinview enable, then the full screen is not gonna work out of the box, because mplayer would think you got a 8:3 monitor (3200x1200), modify the shortcut to be something like this

gmplayer -screenh 1200 -screenw 1600 -stop-xscreensaver

This would set the thing in place nicely.

compiling mplayer for ubuntu

remember to get all the required libs
if encounter glxGetMscRateOML or XFree86 errors, remember to install the xxf86vm-dev.

remember to ./configure --enable-gui --enable-menu


just follow the installation guide.

info for vim / gvim save user setting

First, specify your font by going to Edit > Select Font (btw, I'm on a Windows machine, so maybe the Linux menus are different).

Second, after you've selected your font, enter the command :mkvimrc!. This will write your font choice (and key mappings, etc) to your _vimrc file. This will NOT save your color settings if you're using a theme, however. To tell gVIM to use a color theme at startup, go to the next step.

Third, to specify your color theme, enter the command :e _vimrc. This will open your VIM settings file for editing. Scroll to the bottom of the file and add the line "colors blue". You can specify whatever color theme you want in place of "blue", provided you use the name of the theme itself. No file references are necessary. And it's case-insensitive too, so you could enter "colors Elflord" or "colors elflord" and be fine either way. Just make sure you write the file to disk before you quit gVIM.

Also, to change the winpos and geometry for gvim:

The position is given in screen pixels.  Now you can use the numbers to move
Vim somewhere else.  For example, to move it to the left a hundred pixels:

 :winpos 172 103

 Note:
 There may be a small offset between the reported position and where
 the window moves.  This is because of the border around the window.
 This is added by the window manager.

You can use this command in your startup script to position the window at a
specific position.

The size of the Vim window is computed in characters.  Thus this depends on
the size of the font being used.  You can see the current size with this
command:

 :set lines columns

To change the size set the 'lines' and/or 'columns' options to a new value:

 :set lines=50
 :set columns=80

This blog is created to temporarily document my continous efforts in Linux usage and developments

Now, nothing to say really. This is just the start of the documentation. Once I setup a real website (time permitted), I gotta move all the stuff to there.

I'm now starting to move my desktop env to xfce4, seeing it becoming more and more stable and mature, it's time to put it in production.