> Hello. I've recently installed RedHat 5.0 on a system here, but I'm
> having a little trouble figuring out how to work the writable CD-R.
> I've never done this sort of thing before, so please bear with my
> ignorance.
>
> I can mount the drive read-only at the moment, but whatever I do to
> fstab with cabaret, mount insists that the device is write-protected.
> I would like to be able to copy CDs from the CD-ROM to the CD-R, as well
> as simply copy directories, etc. stratight from the hard drive. Is
> there some sort of software I should have to do this properly? Is there
> a CD-R HOWTO? Thanks for your responses.
CD-Rs and CD-RWs don't operate the same way a typical random access data
device (like a hard drive) does. The 'behind-the-scenes' details are
extensive and rather dull, but in a seriously condensed nutshell:
All chunks of CD data are written in 'sessions', which could be roughly
analogous to partitions on a hard drive. This is the origin of the term
'multisession' CDs (which can mean multiple data segments, but usually
connotates data on the first session and audio tracks following).
The most popular program to generate CD sessions on unix (that I've seen) is
cdrecord, available from ftp://ftp.fokus.gmd.de/pub/unix/cdrecord . The best
interface to that program I've seen under linux is xcdroast, available at
http://www.fh-muenchen.de/rz/xcdroast .
I haven't personally played with CD-RW, but from what I understand the
process to create a CD-RW is pretty much identical (in fact, cdrecord has
CD-RW support).
There's a linux CD-ROM faq (normally in /usr/doc/faq/howto/CDROM-HOWTO.gz)
and a minifaq focusing on all things cd-writable (normally in
/usr/doc/faq/howto/mini/CD-Writing.gz). You should already have these FAQs if
you use a recent version of slackware and got the "F" disks. Otherwise, you
can usually find them at ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/docs/HOWTO/ (it
appears that the CD-Writing FAQ has upgraded from mini to full FAQ status,
according to the organization on sunsite, anyways).
--
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| Rick Franchuk - TranSpecT Consulting |
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\mailto:rickf@transpect.net/
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