Create Virtual CD / DVD Drives In Ubuntu 12.10 With CDemu

CDemu is a program suite designed to emulate an optical disc drive, also known as virtual drive in Linux systems. It was original called Virtual CD but in 2007 was renamed to CDemu. It allows you to create a virtual disc drives in Linux systems and mount images like ISO, IMG, BIN, MDF without having a physical medium on hand.

CDemu consists of the following packages which include, a kernel module for implementing a virtual drive-controller, libmirage for interpreting optical disc images, a daemon which emulates the functionality of an optical drive and GTK client for controlling the emulator.

CDemu has just been updated to version 2.0.0. This release brought even more changes like support or ISZ, CSO and MDG file filters, Image analyzer which displays disc structures, better caching, improved CIF parser and GVFS support and tons of bug fixes.

For more about this release, please click here.

This brief tutorial is going to show you how to install CDemu and use it in Ubuntu 12.10 (Quantal Quetzal). After installing it, you’ll be able to mount most media images in Ubuntu without the need for a physical disc which can come in handy in some situations.

To get started, press Ctrl – Alt – T on your keyboard to open the terminal. When it opens, run the commands below to add its PPA archive.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:cdemu/ppa

 

 

Finally, run the commands below to update your system and install CDemu

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install gcdemu cdemu-client

 

 

After installing, go to Dash and launch the program. When opens, it automatically docks on the system menu as shown below. To mount an image, select one of the empty devices shown on the menu.

 

 

Then click Load to find the image you wish to mount. Browse and select the image and it will automatically mount in one o the empty drives.

 

 

When you’re done, click Unload to unmount the device.

 

Enjoy!