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<H2><A NAME="s1">1. Introduction</A></H2>
<P>Many people use Linux to burn CD-ROMs, because it is reliable
and easy. No bluescreens while burning and no headaches about
getting the right combination of hard- and software. It just
works once properly set up. The CD-writing HOWTO explains the
setup, how to put data on the media and gives some interesting
applications kindly submitted by the readers.
<P>
<P>
<H2><A NAME="ss1.1">1.1 Copyright, license and terms of usage</A>
</H2>
<P>Copyright Winfried Tr&uuml;mper 1996-2000. All rights reserved.
<P>Redistribution and use, with or without modification, are permitted
provided that the name of the author may not be used to endorse or
promote products derived from this software without specific prior
written permission. In this sense, translations are welcome and need
not to be authorized by me.
<P><B>The author disclaims all warranties with regard to this
document, including all implied warranties of merchantability and
fitness for a certain purpose; in no event shall the author be liable
for any special, indirect or consequential damages or any damages
whatsoever resulting from loss of use, data or profits, whether in
an action of contract, negligence or other tortious action, arising
out of or in connection with the use of this document.</B>
<P>Short: read and use at your own risk. No money-back guarantee.
If you want to understand why this document has always been
under a very weak license and not under the gnu GPL or similar restrictive,
then you should read this article from the german computer magazine
c't:
<A HREF="http://www.heise.de/tp/deutsch/inhalt/te/8375/1.html">http://www.heise.de/tp/deutsch/inhalt/te/8375/1.html</A> (currently only in German language).
<P>
<P>
<H2><A NAME="ss1.2">1.2 Availability</A>
</H2>
<P>
<P>As the editor of this document I mostly sum up what other people report to
me. I'm not a software developer nor an expert in hardware, so for
specific problems with hard- or software you may want to ask somebody else.
What always makes sense is to report solutions for problems not already
covered by the HOWTO to me.
<P>
<P>I get several hundred e-mails concerning the CD-Writing HOWTO each year.
So please be patient with me, as I cannot always answer within hours.
However, I read everything immediately and put you on my CDR-queue. Before
you ask a question, please make sure you are aware of the newest
version of this document; it is always available from
<A HREF="http://www.guug.de/~winni/linux/">http://www.guug.de/~winni/linux/</A>.
<P>
<P>
<H2><A NAME="ss1.3">1.3 Suggested readings</A>
</H2>
<P>
<P>You may need the handbook for your Linux-distribution to learn about
installing a new kernel. I'm really clueless about this issue when
it comes to any other Linux distribution than my own.
<P>The
<A HREF="http://www.fadden.com/cdrfaq/">CD-R FAQ</A>
is a general FAQ about compact-disk recordables (CD-R), CD-writers and
the required software.
As most CD-writers can be used to read CD-ROMs, too, you may want to read
the <I>Linux CD-ROM HOWTO</I>, the <I>Linux SCSI
HOWTO</I> and the <I>Linux Kernel HOWTO</I>.
<P>
<P>
<H2><A NAME="ss1.4">1.4 Terminology ... lasers at maximum ... fire!</A>
</H2>
<P>
<P><I>CD-ROM</I> stands for <I>Compact Disc Read Only Memory</I>, a
storage medium utilizing an optical laser to sense microscopic pits on a
colorful shimmering disk. The pits represent the bits of the information
and are so petite that some billions of them fit on the
disc. Thus a CD is a mass-storage medium.
<P>The term <I>CD-R</I> is a short form of <I>CD-ROM recordable</I> and
refers to a CD that doesn't have those microscopic pits on its surface.
Thus it is empty. The CD-R has a special chemical film inside into which
pits can be burned. This is done by giving the laser which normally just
senses the pits a little bit more power so it burns the pits. This action
can only be taken <B>once</B> on a CD-R. You can leave out some
areas for later writing, creating a so called <I>multi-session CD</I>.
<P>The <I>CD-ROM rewritable</I> (short: <I>CD-RW</I>) was developed to
work around the limitation of CD-R media. With a CD-RW burner the laser
can do both, burn pits into the media and also melt the media back into
its original state. This is possible, because the laser does not really
burn holes into the media, which would get lost in a puff of smoke.
A decent analogy for the technique is an ice-hockey game: by
driving over the ice, a players (laser) leave scratches in
it. The pattern in the ice (media) is a recording of what
happened on the ice during one round. In between the periods
of the game, the Zamboni cleaning car drives over the ice and
fills the scratches by melting the very top layer of the ice.
(Zamboni is <I>the</I> brand name for cleaning cars in
ice-hockey stadiums). This way the pattern on the ice is
cleared and a new round can begin. The scientific term for
evaporating, condensing, melting and freezing is "phase
change", thus the name "phase change devices" for
CD-RW-writers.
<P>This HOWTO deals with the task of writing CD-Rs and CD-RWs. Welcome on board,
captain.
<P>
<H3>Adaptor vs. Adapter</H3>
<P>The the most frequent spelling within the kernel sources is adapter
(adapter: 4283, adaptor: 154). Even more important, the parameters of
module options and aliases are naturally affected, like in
"scsi_hostadapter". So in order to achieve a consistent spelling throughout
configuration examples and document text, I follow that convention
regardless of the correct spelling.
<P>
<P>
<H2><A NAME="ss1.5">1.5 Supported CD-writers</A>
</H2>
<P>USB CD-writers are currently not supported at all. Apart from that you can
safely assume that most newer IDE/ATAPI- and SCSI-writers work under
Linux. Newer drives are mostly MMC-compliant and are therefore supported. If
the SCSI-version of a particular writer works, the IDE/ATAPI-version will
most likely work and vice versa. However, some people want to get a warm
and fuzzy feeling by reading the exact model of their writer in some sort
of compatibility list. That is the reason why I didn't throw the following
list out of the HOWTO.
Here is a comprehensive summary of drives reported to work with cdrecord:
<P>
<BLOCKQUOTE><CODE>
<PRE>
Acer: CDRW 4432A, CDRW 6206A, CD-R/RW 6X4X32, 8432A
BTC: BCE 621E (IDE)
Compro: CW-7502, CW-7502B
Creative: MK 4211, RW 4224E,
Delta: OME-W 141
Dysan: CRW-1622
Elite: Elite b444.41
Goldstar: CED-8041B
Grundig: CDR 100 IPW
Guillemot: Maxi CD-R 4X/8X
HP: SureStore 4020i, SureStore 6020i,
C4324, C4325
CD-writer+ 7100, 7200i, 7500e, 8100i, 8110i, 8200i Plus,
8250i, 9100i, 9110i, 9200e, 9210, 9300i, 9310i
Hi-Val: CDD 2242, CDD-3610,
Iomega: ZIPCD 4x650
JVC: XR-W 2001, XR-W 2010, XR-W 2040, XR-W 2042, XR-RW 2224,
YR 2626
Kiss: CDRW (no model given)
Kodak: PCD 200, PCD 225, PCD 260, PCD 600
Matsushita: matsushita is the japanese name for panasonic, please see there
Memorex: CRW-620, CDR-622, CRW-1622, CRW-2224, CDRW-4420
Microboards: PlayWrite 2000, PlayWrite 4000 RW, PlayWrite 4001 RW
MicroNet: MasterCD Plus 4x4, MasterCD Plus 4x6
Mitsubishi: CDRW-226
Mitsumi: CR-2401-TS, CR-2600 TE, CR-2801 TE,
CR-4801 TE, CR-4802 TE, CR-4804 TE
Nomai: 680.RW
Olympus: CDS 615E, CDS 620E
Optima: DisKovery 650 CD-R
OTI: CDRW 965, CDRW 975 (Socrates 1.0)
Panasonic: CW-7285, CW-7502, CW-7503, CW-7582
Philips: CDD-521/10, CDD-522,
CDD-2000, CDD-2600, CDD-3600, CDD-3610, CDD 4201
PCA 267cr, PCA 460 RW, PCRW 404,
Omniwriter 26, Omniwriter 26A,
CDRW800
Pinnacle: RCD-100, RCD-1000, RCD-5020, RCD-5040
Pioneer: DW-S114X
Plasmon: CDR 480, CDR 4220, RF-4100, RF-4102, CDR 4400
Plextor: CDR PX-24 CS, PX-412 C, PX-R412 C
PX-R 810Ti, PX-R 820T, PX-W 4220Ti, PX-W 8220T, PX-W 8432T
Plexwriter RW 4/2/20
Procom: PCDR 4
REC: 820s
Ricoh: RO-1420C+, MP 1420C, MP 6200S, MP 6201S, MP 7040A, MP-7060A
Samsung: SW-204
Sanyo: CRD-R24S
Smart and
Friendly: CD-RW 226, CD-R 1002, CD-R 1002/PRO, CD-R 1004,
CD-R 2004, CD-R 2006 PLUS, CD-R 2006 PRO, CD-RW 2224,
CD-R 4000, CD-R 4006, CD-R 4012, CD-RW 4424A
CD-R 8020, CD-R 8220
Sony: CDRX 100E, CDRX 120E, CDRX 140S-RP,
CDU 920S, CDU 924, CDU 926S, CDU 928E, CDU 948S
Taiyo Yuden: EW-50
TEAC: CD-R50S, CD-R55S, CDR-55S, CDR-55K,
CDR-56S-400, CD-R56S-600, R56S-614
Traxdata: CRW 2260,
CDR 4120, CDR 4120 Pro, CDRW 4260, CDRW 4424, CDR 4800
Turtle Beach: 2040R
Waitec: wt 2036, wt 2444ei
WPI (Wearnes): CDRW-622, CDR-632P
Yamaha: CDR-100, CDR 102, CDR-200, CDR-200t, CDR-200tx
CDR-400, CDR-400c, CDR-400t, CDR-400tx, CDR-400Atx
CDW-2216E, CRW-2260, CRW-2260t,
CRW-4250tx, CRW-4260t, CRW-4260tx, CRW-4261, CRW-4416S,
CRW-6416S, CRW-8424E
</PRE>
<I>Table: CD-writers supported under Linux</I>
</CODE></BLOCKQUOTE>
<P>
<P>The detailed list of models which have been reported to work or not to work
under various Unix-like operating systems is available online from
<A HREF="http://www.guug.de:8080/cgi-bin/winni/lsc-orig.pl">http://www.guug.de:8080/cgi-bin/winni/lsc-orig.pl</A>.
<P>
<P>If your hardware isn't supported you can still use Linux to create an image
of the CD. You may wish to do so because most burning software for DOS does
not deal with RockRidge-extensions (Unix-like filesystems on CD-ROM). In a
second step, you can use DOS or Macintosh software to write the image to
the CD-R.
<P>
<P>
<H2><A NAME="ss1.6">1.6 Supported "features"</A>
</H2>
<P>Two There are two classes of utilities: the hardware drivers
and the data-formatters. The hardware drivers support the following
features:
<P>
<BLOCKQUOTE><CODE>
<PRE>
Supported Feature cdwrite-2.1 cdrecord-1.6 cdrdao
----------------------------------------------------------
IDE/ATAPI yes yes yes
Parallel Port no yes yes
CD-RW no yes yes
Audio CD yes yes yes
Data CD-ROM yes yes partial
Multisession partial yes no
TAO (track at once) yes yes yes
DAO (disk at once) no partial yes
packet writing no no no
</PRE>
<I>Table: </I>
</CODE></BLOCKQUOTE>
<P><CODE>cdwrite</CODE> is unmaintained software referenced only for
completeness. Please use <CODE>cdrecord</CODE> instead, as it
supports a wider range of hardware and has significantly
more features. The main benefit of cdrdao is the ability to create audio
CDs without two seconds of silence between the tracks (writing
in disk-at-once (DAO) mode).
<P>The tools classified as "data-formatters" organize the data
on the media ("put a filesystem on it").
<P>
<BLOCKQUOTE><CODE>
<PRE>
Feature mkisofs mkhybrid mkvcdfs
-------------------------------------------------------
ISO 9660 yes yes no
RockRidge yes yes no
El Torito yes yes no
HFS no yes no
Joliet yes yes no
Multisession yes yes no
CD-Extra yes yes no
Video-CD no no yes
</PRE>
<I>Table: </I>
</CODE></BLOCKQUOTE>
<P>The most obvious difference between the ISO 9660 filesystem compared to the
ReiserFS or Extended-2 filesystem is: you can't modify files once they are
written. Other limitations of the ISO-9660-filesystem include:
<P>
<UL>
<LI> only 8 levels of sub-directories allowed (counted from
the top-level directory of the CD)</LI>
<LI> maximum length for filenames: 32 characters</LI>
<LI> 650 MB capacity</LI>
</UL>
<P><I>RockRidge</I> is an extension to allow longer filenames and a deeper
directory hierarchy for the ISO-9660 filesystem. When reading a CD-ROM with
RockRidge extensions under Linux, all the known properties of files like
owner, group, permissions, symbolic links appear ("feels like a Unix
filesystem"). These extensions are not available when reading the CD-ROM
under DOS or the heterogenous Windows-family of operating systems.
<P><I>El Torito</I> can be used to produce bootable CD-ROMs. For this feature
to work, the BIOS of your PC must support it. Roughly speaking, the
first 1.44 (or 2.88 if supported) Mbytes of the CD-ROM contains a
floppy-disk image supplied by you. This image
is treated like a floppy by the BIOS and booted from. (As a consequence,
while booting from this virtual floppy, your original drive A: (/dev/fd0)
may not be accessible.)
<P><I>HFS</I> lets a Macintosh read the CD-ROM as if it were an HFS volume
(the native filesystem for MacOS).
<P><I>Joliet</I> brings long filenames (among other things) to newer variants
of Windows (95, 98, NT). However, the author knows of no tool that allows long
filenames under plain DOS or Windows 3.11.
<P><I>Video-CDs</I> can be directly played on DVD-devices.
<P>Section 2.8 lists the availability of the mentioned software.
<P>
<P>
<H2><A NAME="ss1.7">1.7 Mailing Lists</A>
</H2>
<P>If you want to join the development team (with the intention
to actively <I>help</I> them), send e-mail to
cdwrite-request@other.debian.org and put the word <CODE>subscribe</CODE> in
body of the message.
<P>
<P>
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