.bin = binary files?

[epsas at inflicted.net]

Ronnie,

.bin files are usually floppy BINary images.  You can use these to create boot floppies, driver floppies, rescue floppies and such.  .bin files are also used in bootable CDROMs. 

The conventional way to use a .bin file is:

	# dd if=/tmp/foo.bin of=/dev/fd0 bs=512 conv=sync
(where dd reads from '/tmp/foo.bin', writes to '/dev/fd0' [floppy dev], using a block size of 512, with each 512 byte block padded with a NUL byte [conv=sync].)

This, of course, is only useful if your .bin file is to be used for floppies.  Some .bin's are made specifically for CDROM boot images.  The conventional wisdom is if your .bin file is smaller than 1.4MB, it's a floppy image.

Adidas,
Charles


On Thu, Aug 23, 2001 at 10:11:05AM -1000, Ronnie wrote:
> Hi, Ive been spending the last half hour at work trying to figure out what
> one does with .bin files after it is downloaded.  Is there some kind of
> special technique used to unpackage it or do I just rename the file
> without the .bin?