Linux - Making a copy with a CD-writer

9.2.2. Making a copy with a CD-writer

On some systems users are allowed to use the CD-writer device. Your data will need to be formatted first. Use the mkisofs command to do this in the directory containing the files you want to backup. Check with df that enough disk space is available, because a new file about the same size as the entire current directory will be created:

[rose@blob recordables] df -h .
Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/hde5              19G   15G  3.2G  82% /home

[rose@blob recordables] du -h -s .
325M    .

[rose@blob recordables] mkisofs -J -r -o cd.iso .
<--snap-->
making a lot of conversions
<--/snap-->
98.95% done, estimate finish Fri Apr  5 13:54:25 2002
Total translation table size: 0
Total rockridge attributes bytes: 35971
Total directory bytes: 94208
Path table size(bytes): 452
Max brk space used 37e84
166768 extents written (325 Mb)

The -J and -r options are used to make the CD-ROM mountable on different systems, see the man pages for more. After that, the CD can be created using the cdrecord tool with appropriate options:

[rose@blob recordables] cdrecord -dev 0,0,0 -speed=8 cd.iso
Cdrecord 1.10 (i686-pc-linux-gnu) (C) 1995-2001 Joerg Schilling
scsidev: '0,0,0'
scsibus: 0 target: 0 lun: 0
Linux sg driver version: 3.1.20
Using libscg version 'schily-0.5'
Device type    : Removable CD-ROM
Version        : 0
Response Format: 1
Vendor_info    : 'HP      '
Identification : 'CD-Writer+ 8100 '
Revision       : '1.0g'
Device seems to be: Generic mmc CD-RW.
Using generic SCSI-3/mmc CD-R driver (mmc_cdr).
Driver flags   : SWABAUDIO
Starting to write CD/DVD at speed 4 in write mode for single session.
Last chance to quit, starting real write in 0 seconds. 
Operation starts.

Depending on your CD-writer, you now have the time to smoke^H^H^H^H^H eat a healthy piece of fruit and/or get a cup of coffee. Upon finishing the job, you will get a confirmation message:

Track 01: Total bytes read/written: 341540864/341540864 
          (166768 sectors).

There are some graphical tools available to make it easier on you. One of the popular ones is xcdroast, which is freely available from the X-CD-Roast web site and is included on most systems and in the GNU directory. Both the KDE and Gnome desktop managers have facilities to make your own CDs.