Boot cd

[Mike McCarty]

Tim wrote:
> Tim wrote:
> 
>>>>>Why do people do this?  Faced with instructions that say how to burn a
>>>>>disc from ISOs, or having to find said instructions, they go looking for
>>>>>something else to unpack the image file.
> 
> 
> Mike McCarty:
> 
>>>>Well, use of language like this is part of what causes the confusion.
>>>>One does not "unpack" an ISO, because an ISO is not a "packed file".
>>>>It is a file system. One can mount it, but not "unpack" or "extract".
>>>>These words should properly only be used with .tar, .arc, .zip, .rar,
>>>>.lzh, .gz, etc. files. Not with .iso.
> 
> 
> Tim:

I note that you don't actually address the point I made, which is
that the use of words like "unpack" with an ISO may be contributing
to the problem.

>>>Well to be really pedantic, unpacking doesn't *have* to refer to
> 
> 
> Mike McCarty:
> 
>>I wasn't being pedantic. I pointed out that the use of language
>>like that was confusing and inappropriate. This is practical and
>>pragmatic.  I emphatically did not insist that anyone stop using
>>that term, did I?
> 
> 
> You *were* being pedantic ("one does not unpack an ISO because...")

Maybe you use the word "pedantic" in a way I don't understand.
I'd call that didactic, maybe, but not pedantic.

>>Anyway, I have never used terms like "unpack" with regards to
>>an ISO image, or even anything like an ISO image, like a floppy
>>disc image, for example, which I have been making and using for
>>quite a number of years.
> 
> 
> So what?  Just because *you* don't use the term, doesn't mean that it's
> incorrect.  To anyone who looks at one big file that contains lots of
> other files, getting one file out of the overall package *is* unpacking
> it.

But it doesn't contain lots of other files. It contains a file system,
which is not just a lot of files.

> It's perfectly feasible to do such an action, just try opening an ISO
> file in the "archive manager" and "extract" a file from the ISO images
> file.
> 
> 
>>>And taking a rather obtuse, but not totally incorrect point of view; if
>>>I make an ISO file of a CD-ROM, to back up somewhere else, I *have*
>>>"archived" it.  I might well want to extract one file from an ISO, and I
>>>have actually done that on one or two occasions.
> 
> 
>>I was careful not to use the word "archive", and yet you act as
>>if I did.
> 
> 
> You gave a great big long list of archive types.  You're being pedantic
> again that you didn't use the word archive, though you certainly did
> talk about archives.

I didn't use the term "archive" because it has more than one meaning.
I was particularly trying to avoid the possible confusion of "archive"
in the sense of "backup" and "archive" in the sense of "collection
of files made for convenience of transport and/or for compression".
Only the latter meaning was intended. And, although I tried to
avoid that possible confusion, you brought it up anyway. Perhaps
I should have made some statement about that in the other email.

> Stop playing this "I didn't say that" game on here, it's getting really
> tired.

First, I'm not playing games.
Second, I've been polite.
Third, I suppose that you are getting tired.

I don't like other people attributing motives to me. I didn't
use the word "archive" for the express reason I gave above. And that
is why I mentioned that fact. I consciously avoided the use of
the term. I think it is fair for someone who consciously avoided
using certain language to object when a response is made as if
the avoided language were used.

Mike
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