How is support for dvd writing under linux doing? Are all formats handled, dvd-r, dvd+r, dvd+rw, dvd-ram, dvd-rom etc..? What programs? K3b? What about dual layer 9GB discs?
Any online resource about it?

Thanks!

This will answer some of your questions:

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

It would be good if someone with 1st hand experience could comment tho'.

certain burners work better than others in linux. I use an LG GSA-4120B. It supports all formats and DVD-RAM. I've read that the LG (in Linux) performs best.

xcdroast seems to prefer cdrecord-ProDVD to write to DVDs. I have not installed ProDVD yet so I can't report how well it works.

K3B uses growisofs. I have used it to format & write a DVD+RW. It performed very well with no hassle.

Both ProDVD & growisofs will burn DVD-R/RW & DVD+R/RW.

DVD-RAM does not require any special program to be used.
It's been a while since I formated and used the DVD-RAM, and had some problems with the setup, use & unmounting. Information on the web as to how to use this format is mostly nonexistent. I'll review the procedure tomorrow & post here after I have a procedure to post, unless someone else would like to take this one.

This is very good news, as LG is the most common drive in brazilian market.
I´ll wait for your further posts! Thanks!

I have an LG DVD burner (multi burner, dvd-, dvd+ etc) and it seems to only burn at 2xspeed instead of 4speed... kinda a draw back cause it runs better on windows.. i use k3b

i too recommend growisofs for burning dvd's - had no probs so far ('bout 100 dvd's written). iirc it's important that the drive can handle the mmc command set correctly. my burner is a dvd+rw noname product (should be an ricoh 5240, but it definitely isn't), anyway it works great.

sl mritch.

Extension of last post regarding DVD-RAM

Format and use of DVD-RAM:

first make sure your DVD-RAM capable drive is listed in fstab as
/dev/hdc /mnt/dvd ext2,udf,iso9660 noatime,noauto,users,rw 0 0

(the /dev/hdc is for kernel 2.6, for kernel 2.4 use /dev/scd0; the "/mnt/dvd" description can be whatever directory you have made in the /mnt directory, I choose to keep it simple but different from /mnt cdrom)( the first "auto"reference is for file system to be mounted, the second "auto/noauto" is for automatic mounting of this file system, as in on boot)

Format the DVD_RAM disk with ext3 journaling file system:
"mke2fs -j /dev/hdc"

After format is complete, the disk can be mounted with the usual command, and written to using drag & drop from any file viewing window.
"mount /mnt/dvd"
And unmounted with
"umount /mnt/dvd"

DVD+RW also can be used with no problems thru K3B, but can also be mounted for reading, and unmounted using the above commands

commands above have been edited, that was a late night when it was posted

Very important if you use a DVD as a big floppy: mount should use the noatime option!!!
Else the disk will age very fast.

Yves.

I've had quite a lot of success using xcdroast with the ProDVD stuff, burning DVD+R and cdroms, using my philips SDVD6004 laptop drive (although I'd beware of these drives - they're a bit flaky). You have to get a non-commercial key every now and then, but it works like a dream and it's not a big hassle.

prodvd info is here:
ftp://ftp.berlios.de/pub/cdrecord/ProDVD/

Hi,
I used the latest version of knoppix and was able to use my DVD Burner with it. Sorry if i cant be more specific.

problem solved regarding writing to DVD-RAM from any user profile.

From root I placed a folder on the dvd-ram disk named after my user id. then gave the folder owner permissions to the user and set the group field also to the user profile. now when mounted from within the user profile I can write or delete any file I choose to this folder without any protest from the system. DVD-RAM does not require any software to be used, can be written to by drag & drop from any folder window.

Thanks to Yin Yeti for the point to the "noatime" option. the DVD+RW is rated for 1000 reads and/or writes before going to the trash can. The DVD-RAM is rated for 100,000 read/writes.

The /dev/scd0 thing is not working for me. I don't know much about /dev things, could you help me out? I have 2.4.26, SCSI emulation is turned on for /dev/hdc, an IDE DVD-RAM drive. When I use your command with /dev/scd0, it returns, that /dev/scd0 is not a valid block device. Do I need to create a /dev file or something?

maybe it's called /dev/sr0. check for this device or google for "linux kernel ide.txt" or look into your kernel source documentation.

Check your /etc/fstab file for a line linking your dvd drive device to a mount point
for kernel 2.6 the line should be something like:
/dev/hdc /mnt/dvd ext2,udf,iso9660 noatime,noauto,users,rw 0 0

For kernel 2.4 it should look like:
/dev/scd0 /mnt/dvd ext2,udf,iso9660 noatime,noauto,users,rw 0 0

Next make sure your /mnt directory has a subdirectory /dvd. If not, start a terminal, log in as su (superuser), and type the command "mkdir /mnt/dvd" (without the quotes).

Now put a dvd-ram disk in the drive and mount it with
"mount /mnt/dvd"

unmount it using
"umount /mnt/dvd"

Sometimes after writing to this disk, you will be unable to unmount it. When stuck at this point, I'll log out of my user profile, and log back in as root, then, usually the drive will unmount. You can then log out of root and back into your user profile. This is a bug in linux that needs to be fixed.

For more clarification as to what the fields in the fstab file entries mean, from the terminal type "man mount". the first field is the device, the second is the mount point, the third are file systems that can be mounted, the fourth are options.

hope this helps
sorry for any confusion, in post #7, I typed an incorrect mount command.

Thanks, guys, but I couldn't get it together with 2.4, so I switched to 2.6 yesterday, now it works fine without the slightest problem. It's a little sloppy, however. Is 0.8-1.0 MB/s write speed OK for a 3x speed DVD-RAM (both drive and disc)?
Is there a way to speed things up?