Creating a bootable DVD

The current activity as well as the next one will walk you through the creation of your very own bootable media. This activity will walk you through the creation of a bootable DVD, and the next one will cover the creation of a bootable flash drive. However, you only need to complete one or the other (not both). Whether you should create a bootable DVD or flash drive depends on your needs, what you hope to accomplish, and what kind of hardware you have.

Live DVDs are very useful boot discs that will work on the majority of computers made in the last several years. However, optical drives are no longer a standard requirement on computers shipped today. While most computers still come with a DVD drive, more and more computers are being manufactured without them. For example, if you were to buy an Ultrabook, a live DVD would be useless to you because few (if any) Ultrabooks come with an optical drive. At the time of writing this book, Apple has discontinued optical drives on literally the entirety of their product line. The days of optical media are definitely numbered. If your machine doesn't contain an optical drive, your only choice is to create a bootable flash drive.

If your computer has a DVD drive, a live DVD would be a very useful tool for you to create. You can use it to run a full-featured Mint environment right from the DVD (which is exactly the same as an installed version but runs slower and doesn't retain changes). You can also keep it on hand in case one of your computers suffers a software defect that causes it not to boot, thus enabling you to perform the recovery in a pinch. If your computer doesn't include a DVD drive, then this activity is of no value to you and you should skip it.

To create a live DVD, perform the following steps: