Miscellaneous: Cdrecord
(last edit: 2000-11-22)
                   Oke you want to write a cd he? Well first you have to make a iso image. Mkisofs is a program
with which you can make an iso.

Before you read any further: you have to be root to do all the stuff below, if you aren't
root than you can stop reading....

If you have an iso immage than you can burn it with cdrecord. First of all you have to 
find out which SCSI device your burner is. You can find this out with the following 
command:

root@host:~#cdrecord -scanbus

Cdrecord 1.9 (i386-unknown-freebsd4.1) Copyright (C) 1995-2000 Jörg Schilling
Using libscg version 'schily-0.1'
scsibus0:
        0,0,0     0) 'PLEXTOR ' 'CD-R   PX-R412C ' '1.04' Removable CD-ROM
        0,1,0     1) 'PLEXTOR ' 'CD-ROM PX-32TS  ' '1.03' 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) *

As you can see we have two plextor cd-roms, one burner and one player.

I don't know how this all works with IDE burners but I guess that you have to specify
something els at the 'dev' parameter (doh?).

Now you are ready to actually burn, but wait maybe it's better to first simulate the 
writing:

root@host:~#cdrecord dev=0,0,0 -dummy -multi -speed=4 -v /tmp/isos/myiso.iso

Cdrecord will then display allot of info and will simulate the write process. If it 
succeeds you can actually burn the cd with the same command but without the '-dummy'.

The '-multi' options is ofcourse optional and the value of '-speed' depends on you writer.
I advise you to put the '-v' option in the command so you can see what's happenig (like
status of the write process and stuff).

If you're realy lazy and sure that the making of an iso and burning works you can pipe the
mkisofs command to cdrecord and thus combine the two tasks. 

Man cdrecord

       dev= scsibus,target,lun or dev= target,lun.  In the latter
       case,  the  CD-Recorder has to be connected to the default
       SCSI bus of the machine.   Scsibus,  target  and  lun  are
       integer numbers.  Some operating systems or SCSI transport
       implementations may require to specify a filename in addi-
       tion.   In  this case the corect syntax for the device is:
       dev= devicename:scsibus,target,lun or dev= devicename:tar-
       get,lun.   If  the  name  of the device node that has been
       specified on such a system referres to  exactly  one  SCSI
       device,  a shorthand in the form dev= devicename:@ or dev=
       devicename:@,lun may  be  used  instead  of  dev=  device-
       name:scsibus,target,lun.

       -v     Increment the level of general  verbosity  by  one.
              This  is  used  e.g. to display the progress of the
              writing process.

       -dummy The  CD-Recorder  will  go through all steps of the
              recording process, but the laser is turned off dur-
              ing  this procedure.  It is recommended to run sev-
              eral tests before actually  writing  to  a  Compact
              Disk, if the timing and load response of the system
              is not known.

       -multi Allow multi session CD's  to  be  made.  This  flag
              needs  to  be  present  on  all sessions of a multi
              session disk, except you want to create  a  session
              that  will  be  the last session on the media. 


       -fix   The disk will only be fixated (i.e. a TOC for a CD-
              Reader  will be written).  This may be used, if for
              some reason the disk has been written but not  fix-
              ated.  This option currently does not work with old
              TEAC drives (CD-R50S and CD-R55S).

       -nofix Do not fixate the disk after  writing  the  tracks.
              This  may be used to create an audio disk in steps.
              An un-fixated disk can usually not be used on a non
              CD-writer type drive but there are audio CD players
              that will be able to play such a disk.

       -eject Eject disk after  doing  the  work.   Some  Devices
              (e.g. Philips) need to eject the medium before cre-
              ating a new disk. Doing a -dummy test  and  immedi-
              ately  creating a real disk would not work on these
              devices.

       speed=#
              Set the speed factor of the writing process  to  #.
              #  is  an  integer,  representing a multiple of the
              audio speed.  This is about 150 KB/s for CD-ROM and
              about 172 KB/s for CD-Audio.  If no speed option is
              present, cdrecord will try to get the  speed  value
              from  the CDR_SPEED environment.  If your drive has
              problems with speed=2 or speed=4,  you  should  try
              speed=0.

       -scanbus
              Scan all SCSI devices on all SCSI busses and  print
              the  inquiry  strings.  This  option may be used to
              find SCSI address of the CD-Recorder on  a  system.
              The  numbers printed out as labels are computed by:
              bus * 100 + target

       -reset Try to reset the SCSI bus where the CD recorder  is
              located. This works not on all operating systems.