Incremenal backup of DVDs using K3b program.
 

Hello
I always use K3b program for burning .iso files and copying files on to CDs and DVDs.

Last week I copied some files on to a DVD. It was incremental backup.
The program K3b allows you to make incremental backup. So you can add more and more stuff to your CD or DVD at any time.

This was for the first time I made an incremental backup using a DVD.
Today I tried to add a couple of files on to the DVD.

I got the following message:
K3b program doesn't support incremental backup of DVDs.

Is it true? I am very disappointed because there is 4GB of space on the DVD. I have some files and folders which contain about 100MB on that DVD.

you'll probably have to use growisofs by hand with the -M option for now to do that. or use nero in windows or something. from growisofs man page.

growisofs -Z /dev/dvd -R -J /some/files

To append more data to same media:

growisofs -M /dev/dvd -R -J /more/files

Make sure to use the same options for both initial burning and when appending data.

To finalize the multisession DVD maintaining maximum compatibility:

growisofs -M /dev/dvd=/dev/zero

To use growisofs to write a pre-mastered ISO-image to a DVD:

growisofs -dvd-compat -Z /dev/dvd=image.iso

where image.iso represents an arbitrary object in the filesystem, such as file, named pipe or device entry. Nothing is growing here and command name is not intuitive in this context.

I have never heard of 'growisofs'.
It seems a way of copying files to your DVD without using a program similar to K3b or Nero.

This is just a command line utility to write data on to your DVDs.
The burning is not necessary.
Oh! Fantastic!

Please tell me if I am wrong.
I didn't know the existence of command line utility to write data on to your DVDs.

cdrecord is the main command line utility for writing to cd's and dvd's. Most programs are just frontends for cdrecord, and just pass parameters to it. Mkisofs is the main image creating program. k3b uses one of them.

K3b is a GUI frontend to the CD recording programs cdrdao and cdrecord. Its aim is to provide a very user friendly interface to all the tasks that come with cd recording. . It can be used to copy CDs and burn: - audio CDs (from wav, mp3 or ogg vorbis files) - data CDs and DVDs - mixed-mode CDs (CD-Extra support) - VCDs (1.1, 2.0 and SVCD) - ISO files (Joliet/Rockridge and El Torito support) - eMovix CDs . For more information, visit the homepage at http://www.k3b.org


info about mkisofs and cdrecord
http://freshmeat.net/projects/cdrecord/

info about growisofs and other things.
http://freshmeat.net/projects/dvdrw-tools/

whansard

What is the meaning of frontend?
Is there backend too?

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&d...ition&ct=title

i think you understand, but it's just hard to believe. with k3b, k3b is the frontend, and mkisofs, cdrecord, and cdrdao are the backends.
I don't use a frontend anymore. I just have a couple of scripts that i use to create an iso and burn it for dvd's, but i do use a frontend, simplecdrx for making audio cdroms.

I put the files i want to burn to a dvd in a directory.
I have a script on my machine called mkisofs.sh.sh that makes an iso image.
/usr/local/bin/mkisofs -r -joliet-long -l -o $1 .
which takes one variable. The name and path where the iso image will be written. The $1 holds that variable. I put it in the same place usually /2/dvd.iso.
I have a burning script that calls cdrecord that burns the iso image to disks in 2 different drives called cdrecord.both. This is it.

exec nice -n -2 cdrecord dev=ATA:1001,0,0 fs=96m gracetime=5 -v -dao -force -speed=16 -data -driveropts=burnfree "$@" &
exec nice -n -2 cdrecord dev=ATA:1002,0,0 fs=64m gracetime=4 -v -dao -force -speed=16 -data -driveropts=burnfree "$@"

So, I put 4.5 gigs of data in a directory, cd into that directory, and run mkisofs.sh.sh /2/dvd.iso && cdrecord.both /2/dvd.iso

The mkisofs.sh.sh script makes the iso, the && continues if there is no error, and the cdrecord.both makes the 2 copies.

I just wanted you to know what is possible.