Can't open cd-r/rw or dvd-r/rw...
I'm trying to use those devices but i get a "you don't have permission to open these devices" from NeroLinux (yes, that exists!! and has been "torrented" with serial number and everything!!)
and effectively... when I check the "properties" for those devices it says "you are not the owner, so you can't change these permissions".... is there a mean to change the ownership on these devices??

What are the permissions on your drives?

To change permission to a recording device (in my case hdc is my DVD-R/RW and hdd is my CD-R/RW)
Change to root (su+password)......then enter
chmod a+rw /dev/hd*

The previous answer almost went far enough.

I followed the instructions in the previous post.

This allowed k3b to acknowledge the existence of my DVD-dual drive. It now will show in k3b's devices, where it would not before.

As a side note, k3b auto-detected and has never had problems with my DVD combo drive (DVD-ROM + CD-RW)

I need to know what the command and switches mean, not just a set of instructions to follow. For instance: what does the switch 'a+rw' do?

I looked up chmod and if I understood what aI read, it's a program to change access permissions. OK, I can do that. I really need help with switches and their usage.

Anyway, i tried to burn an ISO image with the DVD-Dual and it gave the following error message:

>cdrecord returned an unknown error (code 22).

>Invalid argument

>Cdrecord is not being run with root privileges.

>This influences the stability of the burning process.

What do I do?

As to this root privilege issue, I am under the impression that it's Bad to run anything as root at any time when not ABSOLUTELY unavoidable. What's the real scoop with root?