Burning CDs on Ubuntu

Sometimes this blog is just a place for me to take notes on tasks I want to repeat in the future, like burning CDs. In this case I'm running Ubuntu and using the new portable Sony DRX-S50U Multi-Format DVD Burner I bought to accompany my Thinkpad x60s on the road.

First I created an .iso of the files I wanted on the CD-R.

richard@neely:/var/tmp$ mkisofs -J -R -o /data/shmoocon2007hack.iso shmoocon2007/
INFO:   UTF-8 character encoding detected by locale settings.
        Assuming UTF-8 encoded filenames on source filesystem,
        use -input-charset to override.
Using shmoo000.pca;1 for  /shmoocon_hack_rd2_timeadj.pcap (shmoocon_hack_rd1_timeadj.pcap)
  1.68% done, estimate finish Wed Apr 11 21:23:45 2007
...truncated...

Second I asked cdrecord to find the burner.

richard@neely:/var/tmp$ sudo cdrecord -scanbus
Cdrecord-Clone 2.01.01a03 (i686-pc-linux-gnu) Copyright (C) 1995-2005 Joerg Schilling
NOTE: this version of cdrecord is an inofficial (modified) release of cdrecord
      and thus may have bugs that are not present in the original version.
      Please send bug reports and support requests to .
      The original author should not be bothered with problems of this version.

cdrecord: Warning: Running on Linux-2.6.17-11-generic
cdrecord: There are unsettled issues with Linux-2.5 and newer.
cdrecord: If you have unexpected problems, please try Linux-2.4 or Solaris.
Linux sg driver version: 3.5.33
Using libscg version 'debian-0.8debian2'.
cdrecord: Warning: using inofficial version of libscg (debian-0.8debian2 '@(#)scsitransp.c
      1.91 04/06/17 Copyright 1988,1995,2000-2004 J. Schilling').
scsibus0:
        0,0,0     0) 'ATA     ' 'TOSHIBA MK6032GS' 'AS31' Disk
        0,1,0     1) *
        0,2,0     2) *
        0,3,0     3) *
        0,4,0     4) *
        0,5,0     5) *
        0,6,0     6) *
        0,7,0     7) *
scsibus4:
        4,0,0   400) 'Optiarc ' 'DVD RW AD-7540A ' '1.D0' Removable CD-ROM
        4,1,0   401) *
        4,2,0   402) *
        4,3,0   403) *
        4,4,0   404) *
        4,5,0   405) *
        4,6,0   406) *
        4,7,0   407) *

Third I burned them to the CD-R.

richard@neely:/var/tmp$ sudo cdrecord -v dev=4,0,0 driveropts=burnfree -eject
 -data /data/shmoocon2007hack.iso 
cdrecord: No write mode specified.
cdrecord: Asuming -tao mode.
cdrecord: Future versions of cdrecord may have different drive dependent defaults.
cdrecord: Continuing in 5 seconds...
Cdrecord-Clone 2.01.01a03 (i686-pc-linux-gnu) Copyright (C) 1995-2005 Joerg Schilling
NOTE: this version of cdrecord is an inofficial (modified) release of cdrecord
      and thus may have bugs that are not present in the original version.
      Please send bug reports and support requests to .
      The original author should not be bothered with problems of this version.

cdrecord: Warning: Running on Linux-2.6.17-11-generic
cdrecord: There are unsettled issues with Linux-2.5 and newer.
cdrecord: If you have unexpected problems, please try Linux-2.4 or Solaris.
TOC Type: 1 = CD-ROM
scsidev: '4,0,0'
scsibus: 4 target: 0 lun: 0
Linux sg driver version: 3.5.33
Using libscg version 'debian-0.8debian2'.
cdrecord: Warning: using inofficial version of libscg (debian-0.8debian2 '@(#)scsitransp.c
      1.91 04/06/17 Copyright 1988,1995,2000-2004 J. Schilling').
Driveropts: 'burnfree'
SCSI buffer size: 64512
atapi: 1
Device type    : Removable CD-ROM
Version        : 0
Response Format: 2
Capabilities   : 
Vendor_info    : 'Optiarc '
Identifikation : 'DVD RW AD-7540A '
Revision       : '1.D0'
Device seems to be: Generic mmc2 DVD-R/DVD-RW.
Current: 0x0009
Profile: 0x002B 
Profile: 0x001B 
Profile: 0x001A 
Profile: 0x0016 
Profile: 0x0015 
Profile: 0x0014 
Profile: 0x0013 
Profile: 0x0012 
Profile: 0x0011 
Profile: 0x0010 
Profile: 0x000A 
Profile: 0x0009 (current)
Profile: 0x0008 (current)
Profile: 0x0002 
cdrecord: This version of cdrecord does not include DVD-R/DVD-RW support code.
cdrecord: See /usr/share/doc/cdrecord/README.DVD.Debian for details on DVD support.
Using generic SCSI-3/mmc   CD-R/CD-RW driver (mmc_cdr).
Driver flags   : MMC-3 SWABAUDIO BURNFREE 
Supported modes: TAO PACKET SAO SAO/R96R RAW/R96R
Drive buf size : 890880 = 870 KB
FIFO size      : 4194304 = 4096 KB
Track 01: data   583 MB        
Total size:      670 MB (66:23.13) = 298735 sectors
Lout start:      670 MB (66:25/10) = 298735 sectors
Current Secsize: 2048
ATIP info from disk:
  Indicated writing power: 5
  Is not unrestricted
  Is not erasable
  Disk sub type: Medium Type A, high Beta category (A+) (3)
  ATIP start of lead in:  -11634 (97:26/66)
  ATIP start of lead out: 359846 (79:59/71)
Disk type:    Short strategy type (Phthalocyanine or similar)
Manuf. index: 3
Manufacturer: CMC Magnetics Corporation
Blocks total: 359846 Blocks current: 359846 Blocks remaining: 61111
Starting to write CD/DVD at speed 24 in real TAO mode for single session.
Last chance to quit, starting real write    0 seconds. Operation starts.
Waiting for reader process to fill input buffer ... input buffer ready.
BURN-Free is ON.
Performing OPC...
Starting new track at sector: 0
Track 01:  583 of  583 MB written (fifo 100%) [buf 100%]   8.3x.
Track 01: Total bytes read/written: 611805184/611805184 (298733 sectors).
Writing  time:  523.078s
Average write speed   7.8x.
Min drive buffer fill was 100%
Fixating...
Fixating time:   42.065s
BURN-Free was never needed.
cdrecord: fifo had 9637 puts and 9637 gets.
cdrecord: fifo was 0 times empty and 9555 times full, min fill was 79%.

Last I checked the files on the CD.

richard@neely:/var/tmp$ ls -alh /media/cdrom0/
total 584M
drwxr-xr-x 2 richard richard 2.0K 2007-03-26 16:27 .
drwxr-xr-x 6 root    root    1.0K 2007-04-05 15:33 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 richard richard 149M 2007-03-26 16:19 shmoocon_hack_rd1_timeadj.pcap
-rw-r--r-- 1 richard richard 435M 2007-03-26 16:27 shmoocon_hack_rd2_timeadj.pcap

Looks good!