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.
Copyright Winfried Trümper 1996,1997,1998,1999. All rights reserved.
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Short: read and use at your own risk. No money-back guarantee.
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 immediatly and put you on my CDR-queue. Before you ask a question, please make sure you are aware of the the newest version of this document; it is always available from http://www.guug.de/~winni/linux/.
The CD-R FAQ 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 Linux CD-ROM HOWTO, the Linux SCSI HOWTO and the Linux Kernel HOWTO.
CD-ROM stands for Compact Disc Read Only Memory, a storage medium utilizing an optical laser to sense microscopic pits on a silver shimmering disk. The silver shimmering comes from an aluminized layer which is the carrier. 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.
The term CD-R is a short form of CD-ROM recordable and refers to a CD that doesn't have those "microscopic pits" on its surface. Thus it is empty. Instead of the silver aluminium layer a CD-R has a special film (colored) 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 once on a CD-R. Although you can leave out some areas for later writing, creating a so called multi-session CD.
The CD-ROM rewritable (short: CD-RW) was developed to work around the limitation of CD-R media. With a CD-RW burner the laser can not even burn pits into the media, but it can 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 the 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.
This HOWTO deals with the task of writing CD-Rs and CD-RWs. Welcome on board, captain.
You can safely assume that most newer IDE/ATAPI- and SCSI-writers work under Linux. Newer drives are mostly MMC-compliant and 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 compatibilty 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:
Acer: CDRW 6206A
BTC: BCE 621E (IDE)
Compro: CW-7502, CW-7502B
Creative: RW 4224E, MK 4211
Dysan: CRW-1622
Elite: Elite b444.41
Grundig: CDR 100 IPW
Guillemot: Maxi CD-R 4X/8X
HP: SureStore 4020i, SureStore 6020i,
C4324, C4325
CD-writer+ 7100, CD-writer+ 7200i, CD-writer+ 7500e,
CD-writer+ 8100i, CD-writer+ 8110i,
Hi-Val: CDD 2242, CDD-3610,
JVC: XR-W2001, XR-W2010, XR-W2042, R-2626
Kodak: PCD 200, PCD 225, PCD 260, PCD 600
Matsushita: CW-7502
Memorex: CRW-620, CRW-1622, CRW-2224
Microboards: PlayWrite 2000, PlayWrite 4000RW, PlayWrite 4001RW
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
Nomai: 680.RW
Olympus: CDS 615E, CDS 620E
Optima: DisKovery 650 CD-R
OTI: CDRW 965, CDRW 975 (Socrates 1.0)
Panasonic: CW-7502, CW-7582
Philips: CDD-521/10, CDD-522
CDD-2000, CDD-2600, CDD-3600, CDD-3610
Omniwriter 26, Omniwriter 26A
Plasmon: CDR 480, CDR 4220, RF-4100, RF-4102, CDR 4400
Plextor: CDR PX-24 CS, PX-412 C, PX-R412 C
PX-R810Ti, PleXwriter 412C
Procom: PCDR 4
Ricoh: RO-1420C+, MP 1420C, MP 6200S, MP 6201S, MP 7040A
Samsung: SW-204
Sanyo: CRD-R24S
Smart and
Friendly: CD-RW226, CD-R1002, CD-R1002/PRO, CD-R1004,
CD-R2004, CD-R2006 PLUS, CD-R2006 PRO,
CD-R4000, CD-R4006, CD-R4012
Sony: CDU 920S, CDU 924, CDU 926S, CDU-928E,
CDU 948S, CDRX 100E, CDRX 120E
Taiyo Yuden: EW-50
TEAC: CD-R50S, CD-R55S, CDR-55S, CDR-56S-400
Traxdata: CRW 2260, CDR 4120, CDR 4120 Pro, CDRW 4260,
Turtle Beach: 2040R
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
CRW-2260, CRW-2260t,
CRW-4250tx, CRW-4260 t, CRW-4260 tx, CRW-4261,
CRW-4416 S
Table: CD-writers supported under Linux
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 http://www.guug.de:8080/cgi-bin/winni/lsc.pl.
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. In a second step, you can use DOS or Macintosh software to write the image to the CD-R.
There are two classes of utilities for writing CD-Rs: the hardware drivers and the data-formatters. The hardware drivers support the following features:
Supported Feature cdwrite-2.1 cdrecord-1.6 cdrdao
----------------------------------------------------------
IDE/ATAPI no 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 no yes
Table:
cdwrite is unmaintained software referenced only for
completeness. Please use cdrecord 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 mode).
The tools classified as "data-formatters" organize the data on the media ("put a filesystem on it").
Feature mkisofs mkhybrid
----------------------------------------
ISO 9660 yes yes
RockRidge yes yes
El Torito yes yes
HFS no yes
Joliet yes yes
Multisession yes yes
Table:
The most obvious difference between the ISO 9660 filesystem compared to the Extended-2 filesystem is: you can't modify files once they are written in ISO 9660. Other limitations of the ISO-9660-filesystem include:
RockRidge 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 Windows-family of operating systems.
El Torito can be used to produce bootable CD-ROMs. In order to use this feature, 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.)
HFS lets a Macintosh read the CD-ROM as if it were an HFS volume (the native filesystem for MacOS).
Joliet 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.
Section 2.8 lists the availability of the mentioned software.
If you want to join the development team (with the intention
to actively help them), send e-mail to
cdwrite-request@other.debian.org and put the word subscribe in
body of the message.