USB DVD burners and linux: cool?

argh · 04-12-2006, 02:25 PM

I'd like to buy an external USB DVD burner for use with my Linux laptop. Does anyone have any experience with this? In general, do these kinds of drives play well with Linux, or is it one of those hit-or-miss, cross-your-fingers-and-hope-its-supported kinds of things?

To be specific, I've got a Thinkpad T43 running FC4 and am looking at an Iomega 16x USB External Super DVD Burner.

Cheers.

truoc444 · 04-12-2006, 04:51 PM

i have a toshiba 16x dvd burner that i use regularly without a hitch. i've tried it in ubuntu, suse, mepis, and mandriva all without a hitch. i can watch movies, burn cd's burn dvd's. only thing i never tried was booting from it, but i think my bios will let me boot from usb devices too so i should be able to to that too.

argh · 04-12-2006, 04:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by truoc444

i have a toshiba 16x dvd burner that i use regularly without a hitch. i've tried it in ubuntu, suse, mepis, and mandriva all without a hitch. i can watch movies, burn cd's burn dvd's. only thing i never tried was booting from it, but i think my bios will let me boot from usb devices too so i should be able to to that too.

It's an external USB burner? I've had success with internal DVD burners, just want to check how Linux handles the USB kind.

truoc444 · 04-12-2006, 04:58 PM

yes this one is running externally through the USB. i would make sure you have a usb 2.0 port because even though it works on usb 1.1 it takes forever (i'm talking like 45 mins or more) to burn a dvd. at 2.0 i can burn a dvd in less than 10 mins.

direttore · 04-13-2006, 01:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by argh

I'd like to buy an external USB DVD burner for use with my Linux laptop. Does anyone have any experience with this? In general, do these kinds of drives play well with Linux, or is it one of those hit-or-miss, cross-your-fingers-and-hope-its-supported kinds of things?

To be specific, I've got a Thinkpad T43 running FC4 and am looking at an Iomega 16x USB External Super DVD Burner.

Cheers.

I'm looking for the same model too. But a big problem is boot: can I boot from a USB device? I'm quite sure that my bios doesn't support a boot from it. What con I do?
Thank you very much.
Gigi

Electro · 04-13-2006, 02:52 AM

I recommend buying a 5.25 inch combo enclosure that includes IEEE-1394 and USB that is ATAPI compatible. Then buy an internal IDE DVD drive to put into the enclosure. I recommand using IEEE-1394 first if your computer has this connection.

A good store for a USB and IEEE-134 enclosures is http://www.cooldrives.com.