Free online TXZ to ISO converter

What the TXZ format is

In the Archives category, .txz normally means a tar archive compressed with XZ: a .tar container compressed using the XZ algorithm. Slackware Linux also uses TXZ files for installable software packages, whose contents include files such as install, slack-desc, and the package payload.

You can inspect or extract a TXZ file with 7-Zip, GNU tar, or bsdtar. A TXZ file is not itself an optical-disc image and does not contain ISO 9660 or UDF filesystem metadata.

What the ISO format is

An ISO file is a sector-oriented image of a disc filesystem, usually ISO 9660 with optional Joliet or Rock Ridge extensions. It is used for CD/DVD images, software distribution, mounting as a virtual optical drive, and archival copies of disc contents.

ISO images provide broad operating-system compatibility and preserve the directory structure, filenames, and file data written into the image. Creating an ISO from a TXZ archive does not automatically make it bootable; boot information must be supplied separately.

How to actually convert TXZ to ISO

Using Linux command-line tools

Install GNU tar and xorriso through your distribution's package manager, then create a working directory and extract the archive:

mkdir txz-work
 tar -xJf package.txz -C txz-work

Remove the leading space before tar if copying the command exactly. Create an ISO containing the extracted files:

xorriso -as mkisofs -o package.iso -V TXZ_CONTENTS txz-work/

The resulting package.iso is a data-disc image. To include hidden files and avoid accidental changes during image creation, run the command from a directory containing only the prepared source tree:

xorriso -as mkisofs -iso-level 3 -J -R -o package.iso txz-work/

-J adds Joliet names for Windows compatibility, -R adds Rock Ridge metadata for Unix-like systems, and -iso-level 3 permits larger files than older ISO levels.

Using Windows desktop software

Open the TXZ file with 7-Zip. If 7-Zip shows a TAR layer, open that layer and extract its contents to a new folder. In an ISO-authoring application such as AnyBurn, choose Create image file from files/folders, add the extracted folder contents, select ISO as the output format, and save as package.iso.

Do not add the .txz file itself unless the desired ISO should contain the compressed archive as a single file. Extracting first produces an ISO containing the archive's usable directory tree.

Using the online converter

You can convert the file on 101convert.com for free without installing software. Because TXZ-to-ISO conversion requires unpacking one archive and creating another image filesystem, verify that the service supports this exact archive-to-disc-image operation and that the output contains the extracted files rather than merely renaming the extension.

Quality, compatibility, and limitations

There is no direct lossless container conversion between TXZ and ISO: TXZ is a compressed tar archive, while ISO is a disc-image filesystem. File contents remain unchanged after extraction, but the ISO may be larger because it normally does not apply XZ compression.

A Slackware TXZ package placed in an ISO remains a Slackware package; the ISO does not install it automatically. To create a bootable Slackware or Linux disc, use the distribution's documented boot images and boot catalog options rather than a basic data-image command.

Check the result before distribution by listing it with isoinfo -i package.iso -f or mounting it with sudo mount -o loop package.iso /mnt. Preserve Unix permissions, symbolic links, and ownership with Rock Ridge options; ISO 9660 alone can restrict names and metadata.