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Comment by qwerty_asdf | Hacker News Reader

So where can I go to download an ISO?

I'd like to burn a bootable DVD, and load it up as a non-networked offline install. Is such a thing even possible?

Download the installer from MAS, it's a .app within which you'll find a `createinstallmedia` binary. As its name indicates, that binary can be used to create a bootable install media. Not sure it can create a DVD, but it can create a bootable USB key.

You can't download an ISO, you'll need a working OSX install to download it from the App Store. From there I believe you can burn an install DVD and AFAIK you've always been able to do a non-networked install.

edit: Un-tested by me, but I've heard this is how you do it:

http://forums.macrumors.com/showpost.php?p=18081307&postcoun...

That is the method I used on an 8GB flash drive, worked great.

There are a few tools that will do this for you, basically copying the hidden restore partition onto a USB stick. Bootable DVD though? Really?

As of Mountain Lion, the recovery partition doesn't contain the full OS. Just enough to bootstrap and download the whole thing from Apple. They also do not sell the update on physical media (thumb drives, DVDs, etc.) in store.

  > Bootable DVD though? Really?

In light of recent events involving the NSA and leaked documents, yes. A bootable DVD. Really.

For some heavy-duty discussion on the withertos and wherefores, take a quick gander at a recent thread, over here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6532642

Remember that part where GCHQ stormed the offices of The Guardian, and took an angle grinder to one of their laptops?

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/20/nsa-snowden-fil...

Still, why not just use a USB drive? DVDs are painfully slow compared to flash drives.

In light of the recent NSA revelations, I'd want to use Linux, not Mac, for an ephemeral offline OS.

Of course, Schneider uses Windows, so to each his own.

Offline means nothing in a world where NSA slides reference jumping airgaps with hardware backdoors.

How exactly will their hardware backdoor transmit its secrets back to the NSA? By sneaking out your apartment backdoor?

If you'd read any of the background on it rather than down voting me, you'd know!

And I definitely agree with you on that.

Just sayin'...

Lion DiskMaker has a beta for creating a Mavericks GM disk. It should be updated soon to support the release. You just download the installer from the App Store and run Lion DiskMaker.

http://liondiskmaker.com/

The installer itself can do this:

sudo /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ Mavericks.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia –volume /Volumes/WHATEVER_DISK –applicationpath /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ Mavericks.app –nointeraction

I used:

    sudo "/Applications/Install OS X Mavericks.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia" --volume /Volumes/Mavericks/ --applicationpath "/Applications/Install OS X Mavericks.app"

Note the double hyphens before the keywords. The quotes just make it easier to read.

Good catch! I think it tried to format my double hyphens as a dash. Should've thrown it in a code tag.

Probably the same way as I've done with Mountain Lion, but with a dual-layer DVD instead: http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/apple-in-the-enterprise/how... (not that exact link, but the same basic thing is all over the internet) If you want to do this for an older OS version you've purchased, you can option-click on the Purchases tab-button-thing in the App Store, and it'll show everything. (totally undiscoverable, but at least it exists)

Works great, much faster installs than a disk.

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