An ISO file is an image file of a CD/DVD or other disc. It contains all the files from the disc, neatly packed into a single .iso
file. This allows users to burn new copies of the disc, or they can open the ISO file to browse and copy its contents to their system.
An ISO file can also be mounted, which is the virtual equivalent to inserting a disc into your PC. The operating system will treat the ISO as a physical CD rom. In this guide, we’ll see how to open and mount an ISO file on a Linux system. This can be done from both command line and GUI, so we’ll be covering the steps for both methods.
Since the instructions will vary depending on what desktop environment you’re using, we’ll be covering the steps for GNOME, KDE, and Xfce. The steps for command line should be the same across any Linux distribution.
In this tutorial you will learn:
- How to open and mount an ISO file via GNOME GUI
- How to open and mount an ISO file via KDE GUI
- How to open and mount an ISO file via Xfce GUI
- How to open and mount an ISO file via command line
Category | Requirements, Conventions or Software Version Used |
---|---|
System | Any Linux distro |
Software | N/A |
Other | Privileged access to your Linux system as root or via the sudo command. |
Conventions |
# – requires given linux commands to be executed with root privileges either directly as a root user or by use of sudo command$ – requires given linux commands to be executed as a regular non-privileged user |
How to open and mount an ISO file via GNOME GUI
GNOME comes with the “Disk Image Mounter” application installed by default. If you’re using GNOME, you can follow along with the step by step instructions below to mount and open an ISO file.
- Right click the ISO file and then click on “Open With Disk Image Mounter.”
- We can see that our ISO file has been mounted, and is accessible in GNOME’s file browser.
- Simply click on the mounted disc in order to access its contents.
- To unmount the ISO file, click the eject icon in the file browser.
- Note that you can also unmount or access the ISO from GNOME’s quick launch toolbar.
- If you simply want to extract the contents of the ISO file, without actually mounting it, you can right click the file and select the “Extract Here” option.
- Your files will now be extracted into the same directory where the ISO file resides.
How to open and mount an ISO file via KDE GUI
KDE comes with the Dolphin file manager, which doesn’t always have a way to mount ISO files by default. If you’re using KDE Plasma, you can follow along with the step by step instructions below to enable the mount option and use it to open an ISO file.
- Search for and open the Services menu to configure file manager services.
- Click on the “Download New Services” option.
- Search for “mount” and download one of the add-ons that offer the function of adding “mount” and “unmount” options to the right click context menu. In this example, we’ll use “Mount Unmount ISO” add-on, which we recommend because it works well.
- Once the add-on is installed, locate your ISO file in the Dolphin file browser, right click on it, and select to mount it.
- You can access your mounted ISO file under the “Devices” menu on the left side of Dolphin. Now you’ll be able to open the files inside the ISO, or copy them over to your system.
- To unmount the ISO file, right click on it under Dolphin’s devices menu, and click unmount.
- If you simply want to extract the contents of the ISO file, without actually mounting it, you can right click the file and select the “Extract archive here” option.
How to open and mount an ISO file via Xfce GUI
Xfce comes with Thunar file manager, which doesn’t have a built-in option, by default, to mount ISO files. One of the easiest ways to gain this ability is to install the gnome-disk-utility
software with your system’s package manager. After it’s installed, you can use the instructions below to mount and unmount ISO files.
To install gnome-disk-utility
, use the appropriate command below.
On Ubuntu (or Xubuntu), Debian, and Linux Mint:
$ sudo apt install gnome-disk-utility
On CentOS, Fedora, AlmaLinux, and RHEL:
$ sudo dnf install gnome-disk-utility
On Arch Linux and Manjaro:
$ sudo pacman -S gnome-disk-utility
- With GNOME Disk Utility installed, you can right click on your ISO file and go to “Open With Disk Image Mounter.” This will mount your ISO file.
- To open the mount, just click on the appropriate name under the “Devices” menu in Thunar. Now you’ll be able to open the files inside the ISO, or copy them over to your system.
- To unmount the ISO file, right click on it under Thunar’s devices menu, and click unmount.
- If you simply want to extract the contents of the ISO file, without actually mounting it, you can right click the file and select the “Extract Here” option.
How to open and mount an ISO file via command line
Mounting ISO files via the command line will work independently of whatever GUI you’re using. Follow the instructions below to mount and open an ISO file via command line.
- Start by creating the directory where you’d like to mount the ISO file.
$ sudo mkdir /media/mydisc
- Next, use the
mount
command to mount the ISO file to the directory we created.$ sudo mount ~/Downloads/ubuntu-20.04.2-live-server-amd64.iso /media/mydisc -o loop
Of course, replace our ISO file path with that of your own.
- You can now access the contents of the ISO file through the mounted directory.
$ ls -l /media/mydisc total 74 dr-xr-xr-x 1 root root 2048 Feb 1 12:57 boot dr-xr-xr-x 1 root root 2048 Feb 1 12:57 casper dr-xr-xr-x 1 root root 2048 Feb 1 12:57 dists dr-xr-xr-x 1 root root 2048 Feb 1 12:57 EFI dr-xr-xr-x 1 root root 2048 Feb 1 12:57 install dr-xr-xr-x 1 root root 34816 Feb 1 12:57 isolinux -r--r--r-- 1 root root 26452 Feb 1 12:57 md5sum.txt dr-xr-xr-x 1 root root 2048 Feb 1 12:57 pool dr-xr-xr-x 1 root root 2048 Feb 1 12:57 preseed lr-xr-xr-x 1 root root 1 Feb 1 12:57 ubuntu -> .
- When you’re ready to unmount the ISO file, use the
umount
command.$ sudo umount /media/mydisc
Closing Thoughts
In this guide, we saw how to mount and open an ISO file on Linux through a variety of desktop environments and command line. This allows us to access all the contents of a disc image file, and optionally copy them over to our system.