Other GNU tips

The power of GNU comes from the command line. It gives you ultimate control, understanding, and mastery over your computer.

Burning CDs and DVDs is quite simple.

To burn some files to a blank DVD, making the DVD multisession and appendable, with the common ISO9660 volume with Joliet and Rock-Ridge extensions, assuming let's say you have some avi movies in the current directory:

• Insert a blank DVD into the drive.
• Burn:

  $ growisofs -Z /dev/dvd -R -J *avi

To append more avi movies from the current directory to the same DVD:

• If the DVD is mounted, unmount it:

  # umount /dev/dvd

• Burn:

  $ growisofs -M /dev/dvd -R -J *avi

Make sure to note the difference: in the first case the option is `-Z', in the second it's `-M'.

Make also sure to use the same options for both initial burning and when appending data.

To finalize the multi-session DVD maintaining maximum compatibility:

• If the DVD is mounted, unmount it:

  # umount /dev/dvd

• Burn:

  $ growisofs -M /dev/dvd=/dev/zero

To burn an ISO-image to a blank DVD:

• Insert a blank DVD into the drive.
• Burn:

  $ growisofs -dvd-compat -Z /dev/dvd=image.iso

To burn an ISO-image to a blank CD:

• Insert a blank CD into the drive.
• Burn:

  $ wodim -v dev=/dev/cdrom image.iso

To identify the dev=... address for the above step:

To burn arbitrary data to a blank CD:

• Create the directory structure for the CD you desire by copying the desired data to a tmp directory.
• Generate an ISO-image from the directory:

  $ genisoimage -R -J -o output_filename.iso input/directory

• Burn the ISO-image to the CD as per the above step.

To burn it in one step, without creating a temporary ISO-image:

• Create the directory structure as per first step of prior example.

  $ genisoimage -R -J input/directory

• Burn:

  $ wodim -v dev=/dev/cdrom -

To burn wav files to create an audio CD:

To burn mp3 files to create an audio CD:

• Convert the mp3 files to wav:

  $ for i in .mp3; do lame −−decode $i `basename $i .mp3`.wav; done

• Burn:

  $ wodim -v dev=0,0,1 -audio -pad -dao .wav

To burn ogg files to create an audio CD:

• Convert the ogg files to wav:

  $ for i in .ogg ; do ogg123 −d wav −f `basename $i .ogg`.wav $i; done

• Burn:

  $ $ wodim -v dev=0,0,1 -audio -pad -dao *.wav