In my new box came a dvd recorder really cool. I have Sarge installed (2.6.7 kernel). Browsing aptitude I came across some tools for the program dvdrecord. However, I can't find this package anywhere. Anyone have a clue? Perhaps anyone who has experience with this program?

it's a modded version of cdrecord, so behaves nearly identical to it. just run "dvdrecord" in a console, also read it's manpage for usage information.

It is in the package dvdrtools.

You may want to look at installing apt-file yourself to help with problems like this in the future it is invaluable for finding files to you need to install you simply use apt-file update to update its cache for the first time you use it for the day then use a command like I used above for the file you are looking for.

Hmm how did I make it this long without apt-file? Glad I read this post.

HappyTux! You make my day a HappyDay!

Just to be sure, a question about apt-file: it searches in packages that are NOT installed are downloaded, right? Or is the example you gave an illustration of what was on your box?

It searches all the files it downloads from the archive(s) in your sources.list that it gets when you do the apt-file update some repositories do not have the needed files so they get skipped. So it searches for everything installed/uninstalled if you want to check if you already have it installed locally before you do the apt-file search then you can use dpkg -S some_file_program_cannot_find and it tells you whether it is installed and the program you are using just needs some switch/configuration for it to find the proper files. Or if you want to check if you have the package installed from the output of the apt-file search then you can use apt-cache policy package_in_output_of_apt-file_search to check.

BRILLIANT
(sorry for shouting, just happy and excited. Great tool!)

Yeah I thought so when I first heard about it myself, a couple of other ones in the same vein that come to mind are apt-listchanges and apt-listbugs which when installed give you the opportunity to see the changelogs of the package(s) and the bugs respectively when using apt. If you see something you do not like then you get the opportunity to quit the upgrade/install and put the offending package(s) on hold.

awesome!

thanks a million. This makes life a hell of a lot easier. One should dedicate a little website to these tips!