Hello All,

sorry for such a broad question, but I need some help choosing a DVD RW. When it comes to hardware I couldn't be more "newbie" than I am.

I am getting a really good deal on this one:
NEC ND-1100
...but it really doesn't matter...it's more your experience with the ones you have that I'm interested in.

So, my question is mainly directed at the installation of it. Most of the shops that I go to have no clue if the DVD RWs, will run on Linux or not and I don't see anything in the box that leads me to believe they'll come with drivers...so that's my first concern.

Is it the case that I first tour the internet a bit and find DVD RW vendors that provide the drivers (out of the box or via download) and THEN buy the DVD RW?

The program cdrecord now supports DVD burners. I am pretty sure all the standard IDE DVD burners will work just fine.

Would there be any sites with HOW-To's on DVD burner installation that you could recommend to a "rookie"?

should be the same as any other cd burner, only thing that would chane would be using dvdrtools instead of the cdrtools to actually burn it.

Hmmmmm???? Just another rookie question....I was kind of expecting the word "driver' to pop along somewhere down the line...these tools/programs you both have mentioned...have they got like a driver library somewhere or am I completely off the mark mentioning drivers when these other tools/programs are used to install the DVD burner?

I found an interesting page regarding the topic:

http://fy.chalmers.se/~appro/linux/DVD+RW/

Anybody else have any other suggestions?

Oh dear

I am getting a bit despondent now.

So I get my DVD+ recognised by cdrecord and really thought I was going to get it recording with cdrecord - loads of people here seem to say that it will. Hit a couple of snags as I am writing big files which will fit on my DVD but not on a standard CD so go looking for DVD specific information.

Then I come across the link mentioned above

http://fy.chalmers.se/~appro/linux/DVD+RW/

and try to follow the info in there but it is written by a real expert who thinks that this is a simple instruction ...

Download, unpack and compile the the tool-chain. Note that separate source code files found in the download catalog are provided mainly for on-line reference purposes. To build the thing do pick the .tar.gz archive, which contains Makefile as well as .spec file. You would need both C and C++ compilers installed.

*******************

bless - I'm sure it's so simple for him but it's 4pm and I have a headache and it's getting worse ...

OK, so I have downloaded and unpacked the tool-chain, and then?

Tried making Makefile executable and running that but doesn't like that.

***********************

Does any kind soul out there who has done this successfully feel like doing some translation, simplification here?

Joy

After all that I might actually have got this working!

Thanks to acid_kewpie for his comment "just use dvdrecord instead of cdrecord" - at least I am actually writing blocks now.

Now if this works I would love to tell everyone how I've done it but the fact that I have got really lazy and started doing most things through webmin isn't going to help.

So, I'll simply at this stage plug webmin to all you rookies out there - it is absolutely wonderful! Go get it and install it from here ...

http://www.webmin.com/download.html

and the instructions are straight forward.

If the dvd recording works I'll let you all know.

Joy

So what is that article I mentioned before all about?

You took the words out of my mouth!

At least I know that there is someone out there with the same question mark over their head...

Heeeelp Uuuuus!

Oh what a big questions mark :-)

Well chaps I am pretty sure I have done a backup to DVD but can I heck as like mount the DVD to check if I have.

The headache is now taking over and I am going to go home and ponder - so my next question to myself is do I decide to give in to the headache and slob on the sofa with my husband and two year old son and a nice glass of wiine or two (not for my son of course!) or do I go to my Tae-Kwon Do class and bash in some pads :-)

Much easier question to ponder over ;-)

Joy

No contest! Go for the wiiiiiiiiiine!

Yup, I thought so too - it's really going to hurt when I next go to class though I've missed nearly two weeks now



So, a relaxing evening and I'll check in tomorrow to see if anybody has any ideas or inspiration. If not then it's back to the

of the



Joy

It seems no-one can help us :-(

I don't work Wednesdays (lucky me!!!) and didn't get a chance to play around at home yesterday (2 year old particularly lively) so I will try and sort this out today.

When I do I'll post my solutions here.

Anyway, the answer to your original question it seems it really doesn't matter what DVD player/writer you buy just about all of them are supported but they all take quite a bit of work to get set up.

There don't seem to be "drivers" for the drives, they are just files to write to as everything is in Unix/Linux - it's just a matter of getting it recognised properly and configuring the software to use it.

Don't give up - Unix/Linux really are great and so much more reliable/faster when you get them going but it does take time to configure them. Linux's beauty is also to a certain extent its failing - it is written by brilliant programmers who work their socks off and yet don't charge us for their really good code, but they aren't in general very good at hand holding - they don't see the point and don't understand why it is needed - so the setup scripts aren't as noddy as Windows. We really can't complain though!

Joy

Well, I have gone through all of this and can get the system to write the DVD but then can't get it to mount still so I am afraid I am bowing out - just can't afford to spend any more time on this and it seems we are on our own

We will be moving the DVD writer from the Linux Server to an XP box early tomorrow morning and I will backup over the network.

Defeatist I know but in the end I have to be pragmatic. Maybe one day I will work it out at home.

Setting up a CD-R seems easy enough but somehow the DVD-R seems more problematic.

Hey ho!

Joy