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  1. Core ReactOS
  2. CORE-11988

Switching from our custom cdmake to upstream mkisofs

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Details

    • Task
    • Resolution: Fixed
    • Major
    • 0.4.4
    • Tools
    • None
    • October 2016

    Description

      For years, we have been developing and using our own CD image creation tool "cdmake". I propose switching to the Open-Source "mkisofs" tool (part of the cdrtools package from https://sourceforge.net/projects/cdrtools/) for the following reasons:

      • mkisofs is the standard tool used for decades by every Linux distribution. Even Windows-specific tools like PE Builder used it to build a WinXP bootable from CD. So we can consider it portable and mature.
      • cdmake is hardly maintained these days.
      • cdmake only has basic ISO level support and limited Joliet support (see comments in code, e.g. no validation of generated filenames). Mkisofs provides all ISO9660 levels - even ISO9660:1999 which makes the standard a viable alternative to proprietary MS Joliet format.
      • cdmake doesn't support UDF, mkisofs does. Given that cdmake is mostly unmaintained, I don't expect UDF support anytime soon.
      • Given the maturity of mkisofs, I don't expect bugs like CORE-11110. The referenced SVN revisions show that this bug apparently exists for a decade now.
      • Feature requests like CORE-9266 exist at least as a patch for mkisofs (Google: mkisofs duplicates-once).
      • Given that discs are slowly being phased out, I don't expect the interest in cdmake to grow.

      I usually see the benefits of having our own tools as we can extend them to our needs. However, a CD image creation tool only needs to follow public standards, and it needs to do that exactly! Therefore, I consider the de-facto reference implementation better than anything else.

      Comments welcome!

      Attachments

        1. archlinux_mkisofs_rosbe.txt
          20 kB
          Swyter
        2. mkisofs-2016-10-11.patch
          1002 kB
          Colin Finck
        3. mkisofs-2016-10-11b.patch
          1003 kB
          Colin Finck
        4. mkisofs-2016-10-11c.patch
          1004 kB
          Colin Finck
        5. mkisofs-2016-10-11d.patch
          1004 kB
          Colin Finck
        6. output_fedora24.log
          763 kB
          jonaspm

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              Colin Finck Colin Finck
              Colin Finck Colin Finck
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