how do I mount a bloody ISO? This should be as easy as right-clicking the ISO and selecting "mount" from a dropdown menu

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m_pav
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Posts: 1780
Joined: Sun Aug 06, 2006 3:02 pm

Re: how do I mount a bloody ISO? This should be as easy as right-clicking the ISO and selecting "mount" from a dropdown

#11 Post by m_pav »

I used to do a lot of ISO mounting, though I have little need to do so nowadays, however, I've kept my Thunar custom actions from back when I was using MX17 and on seeing your post, thought I'd take a look to see if it was still there. Sure enough, it was.

The file you're looking to edit is ~/.config/Thunar/uca.xml and the content you want to add at the bottom above the last line </actions> is below in the code box. Simply copy and paste the content from the code section directly below this line into your uca.xml, save and exit all instances of Thunar and on re-opening, the right click context menu you added will be available when right clicking on an ISO file.

----- EDIT -----
↓ This one ↓ will mount an ISO file. This will create a new folder with the same name as the ISO and a .mount appended to the folder name, in the same directory as the ISO file. The mounted contents of the ISO will appear in the folder and you can peruse them as you wish.

Code: Select all

<action>
	<icon>preferences-devices-drive-optical-check</icon>
	<name>Mount ISO</name>
	<submenu></submenu>
	<unique-id>1698628158097339-1</unique-id>
	<command>mkdir %f.mount &amp; fuseiso %f %f.mount</command>
	<description></description>
	<range>*</range>
	<patterns>*.iso;*.ISO</patterns>
	<other-files/>
</action>
REMEMBER to ensure the last line in your ~/.config/Thunar/uca.xml file contains </actions>

So if you like what you see and are happy to use it.

1) Copy and paste operation into your uca.xml file
2) Close and restart Thunar File Manager
3) Have fun. Once the action has been added, if you want a different icon to the one I selected, or it has no icon because you removed a theme, open Thunars Edit menu → Configure Custom Actions → scroll down and select Mount ISO then click the gear icon to edit it. In the edit window, click the button next to Icon: and search for something that makes more sense to you. Having done this you'll have learned how simple it is to make a custom action, and you'll know where the config file for it is ;)

----- EDIT 2 -----
Adjusted the code to provide better workflow and removed the cleanup as it was not reliable.

----- EDIT 3 -----
Massive cleanup, removed superfluous content, fall back to Thunar Device Management and added an icon.
Last edited by m_pav on Mon Nov 04, 2024 8:17 pm, edited 5 times in total.
Mike P

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Adrian
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Re: how do I mount a bloody ISO? This should be as easy as right-clicking the ISO and selecting "mount" from a dropdown

#12 Post by Adrian »

I'm a fan of isomount script that BitJam created.

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m_pav
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Re: how do I mount a bloody ISO? This should be as easy as right-clicking the ISO and selecting "mount" from a dropdown

#13 Post by m_pav »

Adrian wrote: Mon Nov 04, 2024 10:19 am I'm a fan of isomount script that BitJam created.
Same here, but the OP wanted a click and go method, so I gave one. It ain't pretty, but it works well enough, but I just found it leaves residuals in the original ISO location because it doesn't clean up after itself. I'll look into this further

I tend to find this type of complaint/request stems from a Windows mindset where you can shout at and abuse the company, but expect everyone else to provide the same functionality without respect to their volunteer efforts that stem into multiple thousands of hours given away free of charge.
Last edited by m_pav on Mon Nov 04, 2024 2:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Mike P

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Buck Fankers
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Re: how do I mount a bloody ISO? This should be as easy as right-clicking the ISO and selecting "mount" from a dropdown

#14 Post by Buck Fankers »

m_pav wrote: Mon Nov 04, 2024 2:09 pm I tend to find this type of complaint/request stems from a Windows mindset where you can shout at and abuse the company, but expect everyone else to provide the same functionality without respect to their volunteer efforts that stem into multiple thousands of hours given away free of charge.
Yes. The whole conversation from this person was quite rude. Good I'm not moderator here, or that person would be already gone.

Lots of interesting info you posted, let me thank you for it.

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m_pav
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Re: how do I mount a bloody ISO? This should be as easy as right-clicking the ISO and selecting "mount" from a dropdown

#15 Post by m_pav »

@Buck Fankers Thanks for that.

Having not used the actions menu for quite some time, I forgot it didn't clean up after itself so I have amended it to do so by editing post #11 at the top of this page.
Mike P

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dreamer
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Re: how do I mount a bloody ISO? This should be as easy as right-clicking the ISO and selecting "mount" from a dropdown

#16 Post by dreamer »

I used to be a MATE user so I always used the MATE image mounter from the mate-utils package. It requires removing OnlyShowIn=MATE from the desktop file to show up in other desktop environments. I used it today to mount the Fedora 41 iso and the img files contained therein. It lets you browse through your default file manager.
Note to self and others: SysVinit is a good option. However if you run into problems try with systemd first. This applies to AppImages, Flatpaks, GitHub packages and even some Debian packages.

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m_pav
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Re: how do I mount a bloody ISO? This should be as easy as right-clicking the ISO and selecting "mount" from a dropdown

#17 Post by m_pav »

Quick note, I edited post #11 above to shave out unnecessary content and remove the umount line because it was too inconsistent. I also removed the mount check as it was no longer relevant and I added a filter condition for both lower case and upper case .iso file names.

Thunars context menu will show Mount ISO at-or near the bottom when right-clicking on an iso or an ISO file.
Clicking Mount ISO will create a new folder with the same name and in the same location as the iso, the new folder will have .mount appended to the file name. The iso file will be mounted into that folder and you can view it contents therein.

Unmounting or ejecting the ISO is done through Thunars Device management in the same way as one would unmount or eject external storage devices. The created folder will remain after the iso is unmounted (ejected) and if you are currently viewing the contents within the folder when you unmount/eject it, Thunar will reset to your default homedir startup view. Some will find this frustrating because they will want to remove the residual folder left behind and will have to navigate back to the original ISO location to do so.

To avoid this, back out of the created folder to where you can see the both the iso and the created folder before you unmount/eject it, then you can safely delete the created <IsoFileName>.mount folder if you so desire.

If an ISO is already mounted, remounting it will do no harm and no double-ups will be created. Not all ISO's will appear to have any relevant content other than a readme file. This is usually because they contain a UDF file system as opposed to the regular CDFS. I do not have a means to make this viewable, maybe others can try and report back.

So far, I've tried libufd0 and udftools, but these seem to be more aligned to creating the UDF Filesystem.

Now if @Katie Boundary would be so inclined, would you like to mark the thread as solved?
Mike P

Regd Linux User #472293
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figueroa
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Re: how do I mount a bloody ISO? This should be as easy as right-clicking the ISO and selecting "mount" from a dropdown

#18 Post by figueroa »

"mount -o loop nameof.iso /mnt/iso" where "iso" is a mountpoint that must already exist, can have any name, and is technically a directory.

ADDED: Also works for non-bloody ISO.
Andy Figueroa
Using Unix from 1984; GNU/Linux from 1993

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