I'm just a bit curios about this, it's really not a problem really...

When I burn cd's in Windows I can listen to music and all that stuff at the same time.. With my Mandrake9.2, I can't. Music don't play properly and I can't do anything else while burning. So, I just wanna know, is this "normal"?

Not really normal. System specs would help, as well as what software you're using, what is memory usage like, is dma enabled for the drive, etc.

You might consider upgrading to a cdrecord version >2.0 and a Linux 2.6 kernel, and using the new cdrecord's ability to work without the ide-scsi emulation kludge.

DMA is enabled for all the IDE devices on my system. I have a basic Mandrake9.2 system, meaning I haven't installed anything on it except for one game and couple programs, like Opera. I use k3b as burning software. I'm very noob on these upgrades, especially when it comes to something like kernel. Doesn't sound too easy . My hardware:

Intel "Rock Lake" D865PERL motherboard
Intel P4 2,8Ghz
2x TwinMOS 512mb 400mhz
Club3D Radeon 9500Pro 128Mb
Maxtor 40gb
Seagate 80gb
Samsung 160gb
WD 200gb
Plextor PX-708A DVD+/-RW
Plextor DVD-ROM PX-116A

Also, I would appreciate a simple step-by-step guide to upgrade KDE to newer version, since the newer version of k3b (that supports DVD writing) won't work with 3.1.3.

Thanks