Using command line wodim tool to burn iso image

If you are looking to burn an ISO image to physical media such as a CD or DVD, instead of a conventional method using a GUI application, there are also many ways on how to burn an ISO image from the command line. One way is to use the wodim command. In this tutorial, we will cover the step by step instructions to burn an ISO image to disc using the wodim tool on a Linux system.

In this tutorial you will learn:

• How to burn an ISO image to physial disc using wodim command

Software Requirements and Linux Command Line Conventions

Category	Requirements, Conventions or Software Version Used
System	Any Linux distro
Software	wodim
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

Using command line wodim tool to burn iso image step by step instructions

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1. In case it is not already installed, you can use the following commands to install wodim on Ubuntu, Debian and Linux Mint:

   $ sudo apt update
   $ sudo apt install wodim
   

2. The next step is to identify our CD/DVD burner block device file name with the wodim --devices command:

   $ wodim --devices
   wodim: Overview of accessible drives (1 found) :
   -------------------------------------------------------------------------
    0  dev='/dev/scd0'     rwrw-- : 'TSSTcorp' 'CD/DVDW SH-S183L'
   -------------------------------------------------------------------------
   

3. Now we can combine the device file of our burning device with wodim command to write actual ISO image:

   $ wodim -eject -tao speed=0 dev=/dev/scd0 -v -data /my/directory/image.iso
   

4. Ff you get an error mesage saying : wodim: trying to use a high speed medium on low writer try use higher burning speed such as speed=1 or speed=2:

   $ wodim -eject -tao speed=1 dev=/dev/scd0 -v -data /my/directory/image.iso
   

Closing Thoughts

In this tutorial, we saw how to burn an ISO image file to a CD or DVD on a Linux system. The wodim utility makes this task very painless, and some users may find it more convenient or simple than using a GUI application to perform the same function.