View source for How to download and burn CentOS 8 to a DVD or Flash Drive

'''[[CentOS 8| < Table of Contents]]''' | '''[[How to install CentOS 8|Install CentOS 8 >]]'''

This page documents how to download [[CentOS 8]] and burn it onto a DVD or a Flash Drive. Before continuing, make sure you have the following:

==Computer specs==
*2GB of RAM
*8GB of free space on your hard drive

==If installing onto a DVD==
*A DVD drive, either portable or built into the computer itself.
*A machine capable of booting from a USB DVD drive if you are using one.
*A spare DVD. 

'''IMPORTANT''': The CentOS ISO is about 6 GB, which will not fit on a standard 4.7GB DVD (although will fit on a dual 8GB DVD). If your server has an internet connection you will probably want to use the boot ISO and download everything from the internet instead.

==If installing onto a Flash Drive==
*A Flash Drive with at least 8GB of space, and formatted as FAT32. 
*A machine capable of booting from a USB Flash Drive device.

'''IMPORTANT:''' The Flash Drive must be formatted as FAT32 when doing this. If it isn't, then it will NOT boot correctly. If your Flash Drive is >32 GB, see the page [[How to format a Flash Drive bigger than 32GB as FAT32]] for more instructions.

If you have all of this, you're ready to go! Lets get to downloading.

==Downloading the ISO==
There are a few we can download the ISO for CentOS 8.
*Through a torrenting client, which is the fastest and easiest way.
*Through HTTP, from a mirror website. 

===Via HTTP===
To grab the ISO from HTTP, a mirror site must be used. There are many mirrors around. An example of a mirror with boot and installation DVDs is here:
http://mirror.mia11.us.leaseweb.net/centos/8.0.1905/isos/x86_64/ 

A full list of mirrors is available here: http://isoredirect.centos.org/centos/8/isos/x86_64/ For best results, choose the closest mirror to you.

===Via BitTorrent===
The easiest, and fastest way to get the ISO is through a BitTorrent client. My personal client of choice is [https://transmissionbt.com/ Transmission], but you can use whatever you want. Popular ones are Transmission, qBitTorrent, BitTorrent and uTorrent (uTorrent is unrecommended since it spams ads everywhere).

When you have a torrent client set up, go to one of the mirror sites (for example: http://mirror.mia11.us.leaseweb.net/centos/8.0.1905/isos/x86_64/ ) and choose the .torrent file. Once you load the file, it should start downloading. Once its finished, you should keep seeding it (unless you have low bandwidth/slow internet) so others may download the file quickly as well.

Once we download the ISO its time to burn our ISO into a DVD or Flash Drive. Make sure you have read the above requirements.

==Burning onto a DVD==
===Windows===
Starting with Windows Vista, all versions come with a built-in DVD Burner called Windows Disc Image Burner which is good enough to use. If you're using XP or a modified versions of Windows without this component you may need to download [https://www.imgburn.com/ Imgburn] instead. The instructions will cover Windows Disc Image Burner.

*Go to your Downloads (or wherever you stored the ISO), and right click on it. Select "Burn disc image".

[[File:CentOS-8-1.png|800px]]

Verify the drive is correct and begin burning the DVD.

[[File:CentOS-8-2.png]]

After finishing the burn, eject the DVD and [[How to install CentOS 8|proceed to the next page]]. 

[[File:CentOS-8-3.png]]

===Linux===
On Linux, many tools for burning a DVD exist. 

====wodim====
wodim is the recommended way to burn a disc, since it comes with most distros. To begin, type in <code>wodim --devices</code> to list your disc drive location (in most distros, its <code>/mnt/cdrom</code>). Then you can burn the ISO file to the disc like this: <code>wodim dev=/dev/cdrom -v -data ~/path_to_centos_8_iso.iso</code>. Of course, replace /dev/cdrom with something else if this isn't applicable to you.

====GNOME====
For GNOME 3 desktops, a tool named "Brasero" comes packaged with the DE, and is somewhat similar to ImgBurn in terms of graphic interface. 

*Much like in Windows, you can burn the DVD by right-clicking on the ISO and selecting "Burn to Disc". Click "Select a Disc" in the Image Burning Setup, and then click on your disc drive in the list. Then click "Burn" to burn the ISO to the disc.

===MacOS===

====Disk Utility====
'''NOTICE:''' This feature was removed in El Capitan (10.11), so this will only work if you're on Yosemite (10.10) or older

*Open Disk Utility.
*Click on the "Burn" icon (the one that has a nuclear symbol, of course.)
*Locate the CentOS 8 ISO file.
*Click "Burn".

====Mac Finder====
This feature works on El Capitan and above.

*In the Mac Finder, locate the CentOS 8 ISO file.
*Select it.
*Click the "File" menu and choose "Burn Disk Image (name) To Disc..."
*Click "Burn".

====Terminal====
MacOS also comes with a command-line burner. You can run this to burn an ISO to a DVD:

<code>hdiutil burn ~/path_to_centos_8_iso.iso</code>

==Burning onto a Flash Drive==
Unfortunately, the normal tool for the job (unetbootin) does not seem to work with CentOS, but thankfully there are still fairly easy methods we can use. 

===Fedora Media Writer===
On Windows, Mac, and Linux, the tool Fedora Media Writer can do the job. Although it is designed for use with Fedora, it will also work with CentOS. 

Download the tool [https://getfedora.org/en/workstation/download/ here]. When the tool is installed and starts, do the following:

*Select "Custom Image". Locate the CentOS 8 ISO.
*Make sure the right Flash Drive is selected, and click "Write to disk".

====dd====
'''dd''' is a very standard tool included in all Linux distributions, as well as BSD, Haiku, and nearly all Unix-like distributions. Basically if you're running a nix operating system then chances are you have this tool. To use it, insert your USB and figure out what device it is. <code>lsblk</code> can do this on most distros. Once you've found the drive name, run the following command:

<code>dd if=~/path_to_centos_8_iso.iso of=/dev/sdz</code>

of course replacing "sdz" with the drive. MAKE SURE IT IS THE RIGHT DRIVE. Also, don't install it onto /dev/sdz1, only /dev/sdz.

There also exists a port of dd to Windows, available [http://www.chrysocome.net/dd here].

'''[[CentOS 8| < Table of Contents]]''' | '''[[How to install CentOS 8|Install CentOS 8 >]]'''

[[Category:Linux installation guides]]
[[Category:OS Installation guides]]
[[Category:Tutorials]]