[Techtalk] understanding cdrecord

[Conor Daly]

On Sun, Nov 03, 2002 at 06:05:36PM +0100 or so it is rumoured hereabouts, 
Hamster thought:
> Hi!
> 
> After becoming more and more disillusioned with the various graphical 
> cd burning programmes out there, I decided to follow someones suggestion 
> and try just using the command line cdrecord.

I know the feeling!  I checked out one or two myself but found mkisofs and
cdrecord to be just what I needed.   

> So I've read the man page, but I am afraid I am the none the wiser as to 
> how to burn my .iso image.
> 
> For example, the man page has taught me that with the -pad option "15 
> sectors of zeroed data will be added to the end of this and each  
> subsequent  data  track".
> 
> I mean thats just wonderful. But what does it *mean*? How do I know if 
> I need to use the -pad option for burning my image?
 
:-)

> My two questions to the list are:
> 
> 1) Do I need the -pad option to burn an .iso image?
 
Generally no.  If you made your .iso with mkisofs or by copying an
existing CD with "dd if=/dev/cdrom of=cd.iso", your .iso is already a
complete CD image.  You only need 

cdrecord cd.iso

to burn the CD.  You can add stuff like "-v" for more verbose output and
"-eject" to save you the trouble of pressing the button after.  I'm not
sure when -pad is needed, I've never used it for _data_ CDs.  For _audio_
CDs on the other hand, -pad is required to make an audio track occupy the
proper number of sectors.  Again, if you've ripped tracks from a CD, you
shouldn't need -pad but if you've got audio recorded from other sources
(eg. from cassette tape) chances are the tracks won't be the right length.
for this application, you need -pad.

Don't forget the bug mentioned in the man page for cdrecord:

BUGS
       Cdrecord has even more options than ls.

maybe you just don't need it!  BTW, experimenting with CDRW discs is a
Good Thing(tm).  "cdrecord -blank=fast" will wipe one for reuse.

> 2) Where can I find out more info as to this whole burning business? 
> Like what do all these options mean, and how do I know if I need to use 
> them or not?

The CD-Writing-HOWTO (http://www.ldp.org) has some useful info though it
doesn't really explain the options to that great a degree...

> Thanks for any enlightenment...

or sawfish...

Conor
-- 
Conor Daly <conor.daly at oceanfree.net>

Domestic Sysadmin :-)
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