# How do I make my burner work fully?

## Apreche

I have a Plextor PX-712A.  It is a very nice burner.  With Nero in windows it burns everything perfectly every time, and I feel very secure that there will never be a coaster.  

For gentoo I have made it work sometimes using k3b.  But I do not feel as secure.  It seems to be incredibly difficult to find a comprehensive guide to burning optical media in linux, specifically gentoo.  And it is difficult to get straight answers with complete details.  In the past I have tried different things and actually coastered a few DVD+Rs which was bad. There was also some issue regarding setuid in 2.6.8 that was never fully explained to me.  

Right now I am using 2.6.9, cdrtools, dvd+rw-tools and k3b.  I can burn cd-rs just fine.  Also I can burn dvd+rws, which I felt safe in trying because at worst I can use nero to clear them.  As for other discs, I'm not willing to risk it without complete information.  So I want to ask many many questions for which I have not been able to find answers. 

1) SCSI emulation. It used to be preferred, but I've heard that now ATAPI is the way to go.  This is good because I am using ATAPI, but why is SCSI emulation still in the kernel? Does it still have a use? Should I use it?

2) cdrtools/dvdrtools/cdrecord-prodvd/dvd+rw-tools/etc.  What is the difference between all these different things?  Which one do I want? There is very little explanation on what the differences are.  

3) In k3b under settings->configure k3b->devices it says yes to everything except it seems to think my burner can't burn DVD+R(W)s.  Although it DID just burn a DVD+RW.  I am not ready to risk DVD+Rs which I have coastered over a month ago and haven't experimented since.  I don't want to experiment, I want to know. Is the fact that it says no a bug or a bad configuration on my part? 

4) Do I need to become root to burn things? What exactly is the story with that? I've heard people go both ways.  

5) What is the story with that setuid bug? Is it a bug? I've heard from people that it was a problem of bad coding on the part of cdrtools developers. I've heard from others that they changed the kernel and now burning will never work again. I know the breakage happened when 2.6.8 came out, but I cannot confirm if it is fixed in 2.6.9.  There is a truth, what is it?

Basically I'm very confused.  I'm looking for complete and concrete information on "howto: make my burner do everything the hardware is capable of, using linux software, from start to finish".  What kernel stuff do I need, what do I need to emerge, what do I need to configure. I want to be able to burn absolutely anything, of any size and shape. That includes data/video/audio/cd/dvd/+/-/R/RW everything that my burner can do I want to be able to do.  Rebooting to use nero gets annoying.  Help me setup gentoo to make my burner happy.  I would really like to be able to download digital video and make video DVDs out of it.

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## piewie

1) ide-scsi is deprecated for kernel 2.6 and maybe it's also broken for 2.6.

2) original cdrtools have no dvd support.

    dvdrecord is cdrtools with dvd support by the same programmer

    growisofs is an alternativ way to make dvds.

3) "If you have problems, always check the latest alpha version of dvdrecord". Plextor normally is fully supported, even gigarec is in the new 2.01.01a01 cdrecord version. 

   4) You don't have to become root actually, because there is a patch. The patch does not fix the problem (see 5), but you can burn as a user.

5) It has become very modern to flame against Jörg Schilling (cdrecord, dvdrecord), even he has nothing to do with the problem. There is a design problem on the scsi-layer in the linux kernel, which still has to be solved.

The problem about dvd and cd burning since kernel 2.6.7 is really a little bit confusing. Although since 2.6.9 the user burning problem is patched obviously away, the design problem still exists.  In 2.6.8 there are memory leaks, problems with suid, problems with audio cds and who knows what else more. And the dma problem persists in all 2.6 kernel. 

And never forget: "Don't blame the linux kernel, flame against Jörg Schilling!"

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## Gentree

I'm not a burning guru but maybe I can answer some of your questions . Hopefully we can get enough common knowlege to do a full howto but this seems to an area that is in constant flux.

In 2.6.8 the devs had the great idea that user accounts should not be able to burn cd . This was supposed to be a security feature , but the effect is that it is now necessary to give user some root privileges to let them burn. That seems to be a real security risk to me, not that burnign a CD ever was.

I use nitro-sources which has a patch to undo this sillyness.

cdrtools is just that , cd stuff. cdrecord-prodvd is a semi-controlled copyrighted add-on for cdrecord to burn dvds. Not very effective protection and a pain in the bum, but that's what the author has chosen to do.

k3b is just a neroesque gui front-end for burning , it has no built-in burning software , it uses cdrecord et al. You can configure it to use what ever command line tools and options you like.

There is a guide to DVD ripping somewhere that you may find informative.

HTH.  :Cool: 

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## Apreche

 *piewie wrote:*   

> 1) ide-scsi is deprecated for kernel 2.6 and maybe it's also broken for 2.6.
> 
> 2) original cdrtools have no dvd support.
> 
>     dvdrecord is cdrtools with dvd support by the same programmer
> ...

 \

This is exactly the thing I'm talking about. What is dvdrecord? There is no such ebuild.  What packages do I need merged and how do I configure them to make burning dvds work?  Do you mean dvdrtools or cdrecord-prodvd?  So confusing.

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## piewie

Sorry, ich meinte auch cdrecordd-prodvd. War etwas ungeschickt von mir. 

Es gibt, glaube ich, in irgendeiner Readme den zugehörigen Schlüssel, den man dazu benötigt. Dieser muß wohl alle 6 Monate erneuert werden. Jörg Schilling versucht laut seiner Darstellung den Code vor Firmen zu schützen, die damit Geld machen wollen. 

Ich verwende growisofs (aus dvd+rw-tools), was bisher anstandslos funktioniert hat. Denn inzwischen werden + und - Formate untersatützt. Meinem LG 4040b wird in k3b confiig auch korrekt angezeigt. Grundsätzlich sind cdrecord-prodvd und growisofs (dvd+rw-tools) die Ansätze, mit den DVDs gebrannt werden.

Bei allem was mit Brennen zu tun hat, verwende ich immer ~x86-Pakete.

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## Gentree

Schreibt man hier auf Englisch, alst u blieft , merci , pogue mo thôn!

 :Wink: 

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## seventhguardian

Thanks!!

Now that i was begining to understand this, you started speaking "foreign"......  :Wink:  ENGLISH PLEASE or i'll start speaking portuguese, perceberam?   :Razz:  lol

Thanks  :Very Happy: 

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## piewie

Oh yeah, it seems that I get a bit confused too now.

Of course I mean on one hand cdrecord-prodvd by Jörg Schilling and on the other hand growisofs, which is in dvd+rw-tools. For the cdrecord-Version you need a key, which is placed in a Readme-file. It has to changed every six months.

The second possibility is to use dvd+rw-tools, which is able to write dvd+ and dvd-. This packet has no restrictions.

I use  growisofs/dvd+rw-tools for a year now. There were no problems. K3b shows the properties of my LG 4040B correctly. 

It is save to use the ~x86-Versions of the necessary packets: cdrecord (for cd), dvd+rw-tools, k3b. Kernel 2.6.7-mm4 is rock stable for me. I can also use packet writing for Mt. Rainer and DVD-RAM.

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## seventhguardian

Thanks  :Very Happy:  now i get it  :Very Happy: 

My system used to burn fine, but then 2.9.1 came.........

Do you know where i can find the user mode burning patch? I don't wanna be root every time i have to burn a cd or dvd....

thanks!!

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## Gentree

I use 2.6.9-nitro1 which had the patch already.

If you prefer to patch your existing kernel you should find the full patch name in seppe's post announcing the kernel release 

https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?p=1710485#1710485

HTH   :Cool: 

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## piewie

Here should also be the patch:

http://ck.kolivas.org/patches/2.6/2.6.9/2.6.9-ck2/patches/

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## seventhguardian

Hi!

I guess i found the patch: is it "cddvd-cmdfilter-drop.patch"?

If it is, i'm confused by the output of patch:

```
# patch -p1 < ../patches/cddvd-cmdfilter-drop.patch

patching file drivers/block/scsi_ioctl.c

Reversed (or previously applied) patch detected!  Assume -R? [n] n

Apply anyway? [n] n

Skipping patch.

1 out of 1 hunk ignored -- saving rejects to file drivers/block/scsi_ioctl.c.rej

```

in seppe's post it says that this patch fixes the cdrecord bug.. is this the "user mode burning" thing?

Should i assume it's a swapped patch and go for it? Help..

Thanks

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## Pepek

What kernel-version do you want to patch ? Maybe in this kernel this patch is include ? Well, that patch for me allow a "user mode burning". And remember, for kernel 2.6.9 and higher you have to disable suid for cdrecord and/or cdrdao. If you don't do that, you will have to some errors when you try burn from non-root users.

Cheers.  :Cool: 

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## seventhguardian

Hi!

I coppied the 2.6.9 kernel dir and patched it. I mean, "reversed" the patch by using -R. So now i have two kernels, one patched and other as it was. I booted the "patched" one.

I have gentoo-dev-sources.. I also have suid for the burning progs, so that may be the problem (i set that with k3b setup..).   :Rolling Eyes: 

...............

Strange, but reemerging cdrtools and cdrecord-prodvd made things work, in the "patched" kernel... I'm trying the original now. Maybe i used the wrong patch, and the problem was suid all along....

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## seventhguardian

Hi again!

Even stranger, i can also burn with the "normal" kernel!!   :Confused:  the only difference is that this time k3b warns me that i must set the permissions correctly, etc.. I skip it and it works.

So, is the patch only made to prevent this message from k3b????

I mean, i reversed the patch, so, if the kernel wasn't patched it is now, and if it was it isn't anymore. Am i right?

So, both the patched and unpatched work the same, except for the k3b message, right??

I am soooooo confused!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!   :Rolling Eyes:   :Rolling Eyes:   :Rolling Eyes:   :Rolling Eyes:   :Rolling Eyes:   :Rolling Eyes: 

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## Apreche

arg! my thread has been hijacked and off-topicted.  

Maybe I can ask my question in a simpler way to get a real answer. 

Ok, so I have a computer. It's an x86 box running ~x86 gentoo. It works perfectly.  The only things emerged are X, the nvidia driver, udev and a window manager.  It uses the gentoo-dev-sources 2.6.9-gentoo-r1.  I have a Plextor PX-712A connected to this computer. And it works perfectly as a cd-rom.  There is even a udev device /dev/dvd so I can play dvds from it. Which also works perfectly.  

Starting from absolute scratch what do I do to utilize all the burning features of my drive.  

1) What do I need in the kernel?

2) What packages do I emerge, specifically.  Refer to them by ebuild name e.g: app-cdr/cdrtools.  If I have choices, explain the advantages and disadvantages of each choice.  I will probably pick whichever choice is the most reliable and supports the most features.  

3) How do I configure these packages?  

4) What do I do specifically to burn discs of all types without coastering them.  k3b is nice, but I also want to know how to do it from the command line.  What are the exact commands I need to use to burn a discs, and what do these commands do.  

It seems like there is a howto: for everying either in the gentoo user documentation or in the forums.  There are ones for printing, and for video drivers and for window managers and for udev and for bootsplash and for everything.  But there isn't one for making burners work.  Especially DVD burners.  Will someone knowledgable please write it?  I might just give up and try to get Nero to run in wine...

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## seventhguardian

The things i know (may be wrong..):

1) Support for your drive. I mean, search anything you can find related with cds and dvds. That's what i did.. I probably added unwanted and unused features, but hey, it works......

Also, some kernels require a patch for a normal user to be able to burn. This part got me confused as you can see from above......

2) As i understand, for low-level:

         cdrtools

         cdrdao

         cdrecord-prodvd (for dvds, dont know for sure)

       I believe there's no alternative for this. I wished that this was embeded in the kernel, but believe that it's not... so k3b must use them.

         k3b, xcdroast, etc (front end for the above tools)

         makeisofs and so (to "master" a cd/dvd)

3) I guess they already come configured... the one thing k3b needed before was to suid root the low-level tools. It seems that now it doesn't.. Xcdroast i believe is the same.

4)I'm kind off lost here.. "man cdrecord" or "man cdrdao" will give you a clue, but, as i tried, some work and some don't.......

Just from writing the above i got to the conclusion that everything is too scattered and there are lots of different tools to do a simple task like burning a cd or dvd.....

You are right, I also think there should be an effort to write an unified layer (either command line tool or kernel) between the user and the burner! Something simple to use that would merge the huge amount of tools needed in one place.

I know C programming, but i don't know if i can do it on my one.. if only someone more experienced could lead a team, i would gladly help!!

EDIT:

Go to google and search "cdrecord alternative". Go for the first thing that appears.   :Wink: 

Google is your friend!!   :Cool: 

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## Doogman

 *piewie wrote:*   

> The problem about dvd and cd burning since kernel 2.6.7 is really a little bit confusing. Although since 2.6.9 the user burning problem is patched obviously away, the design problem still exists.  In 2.6.8 there are memory leaks, problems with suid, problems with audio cds and who knows what else more. And the dma problem persists in all 2.6 kernel. 

 

Ahh, so I'm not the only one who can't use DMA for the burner.  When I try DMA, the cdrecord process just hangs with no data being burnt on the media and cdrecord complaining about lack of DMA (even though I activated it).  Without DMA, it works fine, but the burner tends to hog the system this way.

Ya know, one of the "cool things" about the 2.6.x kernel was the new and improved IDE burner support so we could burn without using ide-scsi.  Simple and easy.  What we got was a bug-ridden piece of crap that still doesn't work right.  CD burning under 2.2.x and 2.4.x was a dream: DMA worked and no massive memory leaks.  For me, it took until 2.6.9-ck2 (con koliva's patch) to get a kernel that actually works somewhat for burning, without DMA support of course.  :Sad: 

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## Doogman

All right Apreche, here's a quicky howto on how to make a cd/dvd burner work under Linux.  This is all with the command line, no girly-man GUI stuff here.  Besides, if you get the command line stuff to work, the GUI's usually work well then.

Kernel:

Hey, I'm not going to lie to you, the 2.6.x kernel is really sucky for burners.  It's a mess.  If you are running a 2.6.x kernel, make _sure_ you have the absolute latest: a patched version of 2.6.9.  Anything earlier probably has massive memory leaks among other problems.  You better turn DMA off for your burner:

ghidorah root # hdparm -d0 /dev/hdc

/dev/hdc:

 setting using_dma to 0 (off)

 using_dma    =  0 (off)

Of course, replace hdc with the device name of your burner.

Software:

I mainly use 3 pieces of software to do all my burning:

emerge dvd+rw-tools cdrtools cdrdao

This will give you the 3 main burning programs: cdrecord, growisofs, cdrdao and of course mkisofs (for making the disk filesystem).

Scared yet?  <Yoda voice> You will beeee.

Let's get cdrecord working.  First, find some info out on your system.  This is all for the 2.6.x kernel...

doug@ghidorah doug $ cdrecord -scanbus -dev=ATAPI

Cdrecord-Clone 2.01 (i686-pc-linux-gnu) Copyright (C) 1995-2004 J�rg Schilling

cdrecord: Warning: Running on Linux-2.6.9-ck2n

cdrecord: There are unsettled issues with Linux-2.5 and newer.

cdrecord: If you have unexpected problems, please try Linux-2.4 or Solaris.

cdrecord: Warning: Linux-2.6.8 introduced incompatible interface changes.

cdrecord: Warning: SCSI transport does no longer work for suid root programs.

cdrecord: Warning: if cdrecord fails, try to run it from a root account.

scsidev: 'ATAPI'

devname: 'ATAPI'

scsibus: -2 target: -2 lun: -2

Warning: Using ATA Packet interface.

Warning: The related Linux kernel interface code seems to be unmaintained.

Warning: There is absolutely NO DMA, operations thus are slow.

Using libscg version 'schily-0.8'.

scsibus0:

        0,0,0     0) 'JLMS    ' 'DVD-ROM LTD-166S' 'DS0E' Removable CD-ROM

        0,1,0     1) *

        0,2,0     2) *

        0,3,0     3) *

        0,4,0     4) *

        0,5,0     5) *

        0,6,0     6) *

        0,7,0     7) *

scsibus1:

        1,0,0   100) '_NEC    ' 'DVD_RW ND-1300A ' '1.0B' Removable CD-ROM

        1,1,0   101) *

        1,2,0   102) *

        1,3,0   103) *

        1,4,0   104) *

        1,5,0   105) *

        1,6,0   106) *

        1,7,0   107) *

Yup, old Joerg loves the new Linux kernels.  Can't say I blame him.  Yes, my system is probably different than yours, so make sure you use your info.  If you have an old CDRW lying around, lets try to blank it to see if things are working.  So, using the information you got from the above command:

doug@ghidorah doug $ cdrecord -v -dev ATAPI:1,0,0 blank=fast

I'm going to start clipping the command output a bit, but it should end with:

Performing OPC...

Blanking PMA, TOC, pregap

Blanking time:   44.041s

That means it works!  You might as well set the defaults in /etc/default/cdrecord.

# The default device, if not specified elswhere

#

#CDR_DEVICE=/dev/hdc

CDR_DEVICE=ATAPI:1,0,0

Or whatever your device...

Ok, lets burn something on a CD.  Oh, for the rest of this crappy HOWTO, assume that CDRW == CDR and DVDRW == DVD+R as in a rewriteable media is simply reusable media.  I'm not going to get into the UDF and similar filesystems that make them into a disk drive.  So a blanked (or reblanked) CDRW or DVDRW is just like a regular CDR or DVD+R.  Dig?

Let's make a CD filesystem.  I just used some small files that are handy.

doug@ghidorah wang $ mkisofs -J -r -o cd.iso ~/kernels/linux-2.6.6.tar.bz2 ~/kernels/patch*

Ok, cd.iso is a CD-type filesystem.  You can mount that file on a loop filesystem and view it, but I'll let someone else explain that.  By the way, iso images are quite common as most distro CD's come as this.  So, to burn a iso image (assuming you setup /etc/default/cdrecord):

doug@ghidorah wang $ cdrecord -v driveropts=burnfree cd.iso

Yes, for some reason cdrecord turns OFF buffer-underrun protection, so you have to declare it on manually.  By the way, you can pipe mkisofs on-the-fly to eliminate the file like:

doug@ghidorah wang $ mkisofs -J -r ~/kernels/linux-2.6.6.tar.bz2 ~/kernels/patch* | cdrecord driveropts=burnfree blank=fast -

Checkout how I blanked the CDRW on the fly!  Wooh-hoo.  Enough of cdrecord.

Next is cdrdao.  I use this program for alot of things.  First, setup cdrdao with your cdrecord setup.

doug@ghidorah doug $ cat .cdrdao

#cddb_timeout: 60

#cddb_directory: "/home/doug/.cddb"

#cddb_server_list: "us.freedb.org:/~cddb/cddb.cgi freedb.freedb.org:/~cddb/cddb.cgi"

#read_paranoia_mode: 0

#read_device: "ATAPI:0,0,0"

write_buffers: 512

write_device: "ATAPI:1,0,0"

write_driver: "generic-mmc"

Ignore the commented-out "#" stuff; I haven't had time to tweak that stuff since I installed gentoo.  You can setup cdrdao to do cool stuff, like set CD-TEXT from cddb database, disk-to-disk copying ,etc.  None of which I will get into now.

The program cdrdao specializes in dao copying?  What is that?  Well, read the docs, suffice it to say it copies audio CD's the way it should be.  It also supports the ".toc" file CD's you see on that net

doug@ghidorah doug $ cdrdao blank

Blankey, blankey.

doug@ghidorah doug $ cdrdao copy

Copy, copy.  This works on all kinds of CD's, but especially well for audio.

Ok, d/l'ed a VCD or SVCD from the net?  Ya know, a really big binary file and a small toc file.  Here's how to burn:

cdrdao write thefile.toc

Enough of that, onto DVD burning.  For this, ya use growisofs.  First, I usually have a soft link to the dvdburner:

doug@ghidorah doug $ ll /dev/dvdburner

lr-xr-xr-x  1 root root 3 Nov  1 05:32 /dev/dvdburner -> hdc

Of course, use your info.  Now, burning a directory to DVD:

growisofs -Z /dev/dvdburner -J -r files/

Growisofs is smart; if you use a DVD+RW, it will blank it if it needs it.  It also takes care of the filesystem chores.  So now you should have that directory contents on your DVD.  Hopefully I got the commands right, notice I didn't check it via command line.  Time to wrap it up!

What?  You want ot burn a DVD video.  Well, assuming you have all the files in the directory, this:

growisofs -dvd-compat -Z /dev/dvdburner -V FIVEVENOMS -dvd-video FIVEVENOMS/

Should do it.  Have fun, hope this helped.  Damn my fingers are getting tired.

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## kangas

 *Doogman wrote:*   

> Ok, d/l'ed a VCD or SVCD from the net?  Ya know, a really big binary file and a small toc file.  Here's how to burn:
> 
> cdrdao write thefile.toc

 

I just want to point out that the file ending in .cue is the TOC file for .bin. Thus, this is the thing to do for most SVCD movies:

cdrdao write <options> blabla.cue

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## micmac

Hi,

well, what do you need to burn: Just emerge dvd+rw-tools. But... you need to emerge at least dvd+rw-tools-5.21.4.10.8. You can do that by putting the line 

app-cdr/dvd+rw-tools ~x86 

in /etc/portage/package.keywords. 

Why dvd+rw-tools and not cdrecord-prodvd? 

dvd+rw-tools are open source, cdrecord-prodvd is a binary. Users should always go for open sources software if available.

Why using ~x86 dvd+rw-tools and not x86 dvd+rw-tools? 

Kernel 2.6.8 evidently introduced big changes to the handling of CD and DVD burners. In kernel 2.6.8 the code was broken, resulting in coasters due to memory leaks or other problems. As of kernel 2.6.9 these have been fixed. It doesn't matter if you install gentoo-dev-sources 2.6.9, development-sources 2.6.9 or a vanilla kernel 2.6.9 from kernel.org (which of course is the same as installed by the development-sources 2.6.9 ebuild). dvd+rw-tools has been adapted to these changes as of version 5.21.4.10.8, but the ebuild for this version of dvd+rw-tools is still masked ~x86 in Gentoos portage system. So you got to unmask it manually as described above. After emerging dvd+rw-tools you'll be able to burn DVDs with growisofs, which is part of the dvd+rw-tools. And, of course, you can do so as a user. There's no need to set the suid bit on growisofs or any other program. All you have to look out for is that the user who burns is in the group "cdrom". As stated above by other members, I wouldn't use scsi-emulation for ATAPI drives with kernel 2.6. 

Regards

micmac

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## Gentree

Thanks for a very good guide Doogman. Good to tie all the bits and pieces into one place. (Good idea the original post.)

Thanks micmac for the state of play on dvd+rw-tools . Looks like I need to get that version.

It's actually better to tell portage to do exactly what you want. You say you need at least version 5.21.....etc so use the following in portage.keywords rather than ~x86 which will always emerge the latest unstable and may cause problems later.

```
=app-cdr/dvd+rw-tools-5.21.4.10.8
```

That is sufficant to pull in the version required..

```
Calculating dependencies ...done!

[ebuild     U ] app-cdr/dvd+rw-tools-5.21.4.10.8 [5.20.4.10.8] 

```

Good thread.

 :Cool: 

You can see/set what ever command line progs K3B uses from the K3B options menu.

As earlier post said, best stick to command line until it works.  :Cool: 

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## Gentii

So any 2.6.9 kernels should work fine for burning, if you don't have the suid bit on the progs.

Then what is cddvd-cmdfilter-drop.patch for (patch included in ck sources) ? It will still works fine with that patch, in the same condition ?Last edited by Gentii on Wed Nov 03, 2004 3:44 pm; edited 1 time in total

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## Gentree

Coz I wasnot sure either I went and found out : google the patch name and followed the link to:

http://lwn.net/Articles/98842/

+cddvd-cmdfilter-drop.patch

back out changes that prevent non-root users writing cds until userspace catches up

seems to be a con kolvitas patch so in ck-kernels and derivatives like nitro.  :Cool: 

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## Apreche

Doogman: TYVVVVVVM

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## Gentii

 *Gentree wrote:*   

> Coz I wasnot sure either I went and found out : google the patch name and followed the link to:
> 
> http://lwn.net/Articles/98842/
> 
> +cddvd-cmdfilter-drop.patch
> ...

 

I know that, that's why I ask these questions...

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## mariourk

Eeehm, could someone tell me how this patching thing works??   :Confused:   :Embarassed: 

Thanks   :Wink: 

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## Gentii

What about burning an iso file to a dvd ?

I saw that in the man page : growisofs -dvd-compat -Z /dev/dvd=image.iso

But I would have done growisofs -dvd-compat -Z /dev/dvd image.iso

It isnt the same?

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## Apreche

Ok, using K3b, cdrecord and growisofs I've managed to get my burner working "almost" perfectly.  I can burn CDs and CD-RWs perfectly every time at full speed.  I can burn DVD+RWs just fine as well.  I can also burn DVD-R just fine, but I don't have any DVD-RW to try.  

However, DVD+R does not work.  If I try to burn a DVD+R it starts out ok.  It actually works for a few seconds and burns what its supposed to.  But then it gives me an io error and stops burning, thus coastering.  As I said above I have a plextor PX-712A.  Theoretically it is supposed to like DVD+R better than DVD-R.  It is supposed to burn DVD+R at 12x and DVD-R at 8x.  However, I am using 8X DVD+R media, but I'm only burning at 2x, so that isn't the problem.  And the media is on the list of supported media on the plextor site.  

One thing to note is that in the devices section of the k3b configuration it does not think that my drive supports DVD+R(W), but it does think it supports DVD-R(W).  However, the hardware does support both, there is no doubt about that.  Could this be related to the problem somehow?

Anyone else have this problem or know how to fix it?  I've got a spindle of DVD+Rs and I don't want them to be useless to me.

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## Doogman

Apreche, to be quite honest I'm not sure how K3B would even know the difference between DVD+R's or DVD-R's.  I think that is completely handled by the hardware.

Did you try running growisofs via the command line and burning a DVD?  I've burnt DVD+R's, DVD-R's and DVD+RW's and I've never noticed anything different in the output of growisofs.  Also, I never set the speed of the burn process.  Again, this is something the hardware should figure out.

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## Apreche

I'll try when I get home in a week.

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## hexcentric

 *Gentii wrote:*   

> What about burning an iso file to a dvd ?
> 
> I saw that in the man page : growisofs -dvd-compat -Z /dev/dvd=image.iso
> 
> But I would have done growisofs -dvd-compat -Z /dev/dvd image.iso
> ...

 

no its not. with 

growisofs -dvd-compat -Z /dev/dvd=image.iso

you invoke a special instance of the -Z option, which tells it to the image is already mastered. growisofs acts as a frontend for mkisofs, so if you write

growisofs -dvd-compat -Z /dev/dvd image.iso you will write the .iso as a data file, as it will be remastered with mkisofs as data, rather than as a dvd movie.

@Apreche: I too would suggest burning a +r from command line and seeing what it says. if you can burn +rw, you can burn +r. there is a hardware difference, but there is also a software difference. for example, dvdrtools which yields dvdrecord only supports -r; you CANNOT burn +r with it.

I am still learning about all this myself, but I will post back here as I learn more. Cheers

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