cdrecord defamed sys as badly designed, unmaintained

goberle035 · 08-06-2006, 04:55 PM

I know this is a facetious title for a post. But honestly, cdrecord claims that my new gentoo (kernel2.6.16) installation is either badly designed or unmaintained. (How could it know? Can it do a better job?)

And more to the point, is it usable to burn CDs anyway? If so, should I use ATA or ATAPI? If not, what needs to be changed?

Seriously! I laughed when I read the output!

Code:

$ cdrecord -scanbus dev=ATAPI:
scsidev: 'ATAPI:'
devname: 'ATAPI'
scsibus: -1 target: -1 lun: -1
Warning: Using ATA Packet interface.
Warning: The related Linux kernel interface code seems to be unmaintained.
Warning: There is absolutely NO DMA, operations thus are slow.
Cdrecord-Clone 2.01.01a06 (i686-pc-linux-gnu) Copyright (C) 1995-2006 J÷rg Schil
ling
Using libscg version 'schily-0.8'.
scsibus0:
        0,0,0     0) '        ' '52X24X52 CD-RW  ' '1.06' Removable CD-ROM
        0,1,0     1) 'IDE     ' 'DVD-ROM 16X     ' '2.40' Removable CD-ROM
        0,2,0     2) *
        0,3,0     3) *
        0,4,0     4) *
        0,5,0     5) *
        0,6,0     6) *
        0,7,0     7) *

$ cdrecord -scanbus dev=ATA:
scsidev: 'ATA:'
devname: 'ATA'
scsibus: -1 target: -1 lun: -1
Warning: Using badly designed ATAPI via /dev/hd* interface.
Linux sg driver version: 3.5.27
Cdrecord-Clone 2.01.01a06 (i686-pc-linux-gnu) Copyright (C) 1995-2006 J÷rg Schil
ling
Using libscg version 'schily-0.8'.
scsibus1:
        1,0,0   100) '        ' '52X24X52 CD-RW  ' '1.06' Removable CD-ROM
        1,1,0   101) 'IDE     ' 'DVD-ROM 16X     ' '2.40' Removable CD-ROM
        1,2,0   102) *
        1,3,0   103) *
        1,4,0   104) *
        1,5,0   105) *
        1,6,0   106) *
        1,7,0   107) *

Thanks in advance for any insights!
Cheers!
- Jerry Oberle
perl -e 'printf "%silto%cgo%cerle%cearth%s%cnet%c", "ma", 58, 98, 64, "link", 46, 10;'

gilead · 08-06-2006, 05:31 PM

I get the same messages on Slackware for those commands. The first one I don't get at all, the second one about "Using badly designed ATAPI" goes back to when using SCSI emulation was the preferred way to access CD drives.

The bottom line is that on my system I have no problems using cdrecord, so I wouldn't be too worried about it.

goberle035 · 08-06-2006, 08:41 PM

Various other notes eventually revealed that under 2.6 kernels, that weird dev=ATAPI:blah,blah,blah syntax is now obsolete, and that the messages being issued were code rot left over from a flame war between Linus and the guy who wrote cdrecord, circe kernel v 2.5.x.

Anyway, I just tried using the following command:

cdrecord -v -speed=40 dev=/dev/hdc grub.iso

and got a workable, bootable CD.

Thanks for the information.

If any subsequent readers want to know what's on the CD, it's just this:

Code:

ReadMe.txt
bzImage-2.6.16-gentoo-r9-v5
boot/grub/stage2_eltorito
boot/grub/menu.lst

created with the command:

Code:

cd /tmp
mkisofs -R -b boot/grub/stage2_eltorito -no-emul-boot  \
     -boot-load-size 4 -boot-info-table -o grub.iso bootcd

in which /tmp/bootcd contained everything listed above that went into the CD. The ReadMe.txt says what I'm saying here, more or less, in case I forget. :-) My menu.lst looks like this:

Code:

title Gentoo Linux 2.6.16-r9-v5
kernel (cd)/bzImage-2.6.16-gentoo-r9-v5 root=/dev/hda3 vga=788 video=vesafb:mtrr,ywrap

title Windows XP
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader +1

Cheers!
- Jerry Oberle
perl -e 'printf "%silto%cgo%cerle%cearth%s%cnet%c", "ma", 58, 98, 64, "link", 46, 10;'