I just bought a new CD burner--it's a "Media Stor" 52x24x52 burner that I got from BestBuy. I know it's probably a cheap drive, but it works just fine in Windows XP. I can access it in Linux with no problems, and I've even been able to burn with in in Linux too.

I'm currently running RedHat 9 with the latest version Ximian Desktop on my desktop PC--I have everything updated. Since I use Ximian GNOME to work in, I prefer to use the burning utility that's built into Nautilus. Like I said, it works, but the only write speeds it allows me to select are "1X" and "Maximum Possible". The "Target to write to" dialog box, however, properly lists the drive as "ATAPI - CD-RW 52XMax".

I have Nautilus running on my laptop, and it allows me to choose from any speed up to 24X on that machine. And I definately know that, on my desktop machine, it's not writing anywhere close to 24X given how long it takes to burn a CD.

Anyone know how I can perhaps "override" the way that Nautilus detects the available speeds and force it to write at something faster than 1X?

Thanks!

BTW -- Here's the output of "cdrecord -scanbus", if anybody is interested...

Cdrecord 2.0 (i686-pc-linux-gnu) Copyright (C) 1995-2002 J?rg Schilling
Linux sg driver version: 3.1.24
Using libscg version 'schily-0.7'
scsibus0:
0,0,0 0) 'ATAPI ' 'CD-RW 52XMax ' '170D' Removable CD-ROM
0,1,0 1) *
0,2,0 2) *
0,3,0 3) *
0,4,0 4) *
0,5,0 5) *
0,6,0 6) *
0,7,0 7) *

have you tried burning from the command line?

cdrecord dev=0,0,0 -speed=24 -dummy -eject /file/to/burn

the "dummy" tag tells it to not actually burn (test mode), but that way you can see if will actually work at the desired speed.

I know you said you prefer to use the burning utility in Nautilus, but If you're interested, I would suggest XCDRoast. It's fast and simple and is really easy to use. (if you don't like the CLI )

Well I have a 52x24x52x and it only burns at about 9 or 10. I wonder if it has to do with the speed of the system and the bus for the drives??

Always wondered just never asked before.

I'm not sure but it soulds like a DMA problem.

My guess, and it is a guess, is that a driver other than what you are using will do a better job, or tell the existing driver not to use DMA.

Mabye other people have had different experiences, but as least for me, the advertised speeds for CD-RW's are very optimistic, and should be treated in the same way that advertised DSL speeds are treated, ie, maybe under ideal conditions you might hit those numbers, but typically, the real performance isn't quite that fast. Additionally, depending on the size of the buffer you're using, trying to burn at a very fast speed is likely to just create a coaster.

Personally, since burning is a one time expense, even though my disk is also supposed to be a 24, I run into problems if I attempt burning at that speed, so I just run it at either 12 or 16. Unless you're cranking out dozens of CD's every day, it probably won't really make much difference if it takes your burner 2 minutes to burn the disk or 3 and a half. (The command superbondbond listed is right on the money, but if I were using it I'd set the speed to 16, and of course you need to substitute the value "data" instead of "dummy" if you actually want to burn)

Just my 2 cents -- J.W.