Article Summary:
This article was originally going to be only about setting up CDEmu support, however an older article already exists in the form of Mount cue/bin image files with CDemu - Fedora Magazine
The idea then becomes to mention this older article but to also modernize it for current Fedora releases.
Article Description:
So, let’s say you got a disk image somehow (be it via the internet or someplace else), you might have gotten it in either ISO or CUE/BIN format. But, what’s the difference?
- ISO: the internal structure of the file system inside the disk is preserved, which for some cases is useful enough
- CUE/BIN: the files generate are basically a 1:1 copy of the original disk (this 1:1 copy can include some ways of doing copy protection that used to be common); there can be one or more .bin files and the .cue file specifies how to understand the disk
Two examples of the CUE/BIN usefulness:
- Some older games (either abandonware or releases from some older consoles) are distributed as CUE/BIN as that usually preserves the copy protection mechanism, allowing a simulated copy to appear as legit if run with a program such as DaemonTools or attempting to burn it generating an close to perfect replica
- Pac-Man World for the PS1 can be read as both a PS1 game or as the Audio CD with the game soundtrack, this results in several extra .bin file in the dumped game for this functionality
As an extra we should also care about:
- Teaching how to install on both dnf-based (already covered by the previous article) and ostree-based Fedora
- Proper Secure Boot support (which afaik wasn’t as important in 2021), which might mean usage of silverblue-akmods-keys on Atomic Desktops