anyone tried to burn a CD ISO lately on Ubuntu?

[Syrinx]

I'm using Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope). I recently downloaded (on dialup) the ISO of 9.10 (Karmic Koala). And I can't get it to burn.

I've used several GUI programs, including GnomeBaker, and the one that's installed by default. I don't remember the name of it at the moment, and it's currently uninstalled. I did manage to make five or six coasters.

A little bit of googling taught me that Ubuntu is using a fork of cdrtools, known as cdrkit. Cdrkit includes something called "wodim," which is a fork of "cdrecord." Cdrkit, and wodim, are, according to numerous posts I've read online, notoriously buggy. So, I uninstalled them, all the front ends that rely on them, and downloaded the source-code to cdrtools, and installed them from scratch. That all went well.

But as I'm now trying to use cdrecord, I'm pulling out my hair.

Here's what happend when I tried to "scanbus" the situation.

#/opt/schily/bin/cdrecord -scanbus

/opt/schily/bin/cdrecord: Warning: Running on Linux-2.6.28-16-generic
/opt/schily/bin/cdrecord: There are unsettled issues with Linux-2.5 and newer.
/opt/schily/bin/cdrecord: If you have unexpected problems, please try Linux-2.4 or Solaris.
/opt/schily/bin/cdrecord: Permission denied. Cannot open '/dev/sg0'. Cannot open SCSI driver.
/opt/schily/bin/cdrecord: For possible targets try 'cdrecord -scanbus'. Make sure you are root.
/opt/schily/bin/cdrecord: For possible transport specifiers try 'cdrecord dev=help'.

Do I really need to drop back to a 2.4 kernel to get this program to work. That seems weird.

Then I tried this.

# /opt/schily/bin/cdrecord -dev=ATAPI -scanbus
Cdrecord-Clone 2.01 (i686-pc-linux-gnu) Copyright (C) 1995-2004 J�rg Schilling
/opt/schily/bin/cdrecord: Warning: Running on Linux-2.6.28-16-generic
/opt/schily/bin/cdrecord: There are unsettled issues with Linux-2.5 and newer.
/opt/schily/bin/cdrecord: If you have unexpected problems, please try Linux-2.4 or Solaris.
scsidev: 'ATAPI'
devname: 'ATAPI'
scsibus: -2 target: -2 lun: -2
Warning: Using ATA Packet interface.
Warning: The related Linux kernel interface code seems to be unmaintained.
Warning: There is absolutely NO DMA, operations thus are slow.
/opt/schily/bin/cdrecord: No such file or directory. Cannot open SCSI driver.
/opt/schily/bin/cdrecord: For possible targets try 'cdrecord -scanbus'. Make sure you are root.
/opt/schily/bin/cdrecord: For possible transport specifiers try 'cdrecord dev=help'.

And I get similar results when I forget the whole "scanbus" thing and plug in what I think are valid device parameters (0,0,0), and try to burn the iso, but I keep getting "no such file or directory" or "permission denied" errors

It's so late that it's getting early, so I'm probably not thinking straight.

But I don't get the whole "permission denied" things, as I'm logged in as root.

But has anyone burned a CD ISO on Ubuntu 9.04, and if so, how did you do it?

Thanks.

[RoyGBiv]

1. Couple things ...

Yes, I've burned CDs and DVDs recently. I did this with k3b, which uses the same tools (cdrtools, mkisofs, dvd+rw-tools, etc.), although I'm unaware of any forks of cdrtools being in use. I actually haven't checked but will do so this evening when I get home. Still, it works, mostly.

When I say "mostly" I mean it works with one of my drives. I have two opticals in my system, and one of them has not worked properly since about 6 months after I installed it. It reads fine. When I run burn tests, it says they're fine. When I actually do the burn, it fails. What ticks me off about this is that it's a high-quality drive, whereas the one that always works is a cheap Newegg deal of the day I got just to have.

I've thought it could have something to do with the ports, and I've thought that cdrtools just doesn't like the drive. As long as the other one works, I'm not all that motivated to find out.

Second thing regarding the permissions while logged in as root: doesn't that tend to be the result of the device its trying to locate not actually existing? I ran into this when trying to read a disc once. Whatever it was I was using was trying to read /dev/dvd1, which was listed in /dev/ but didn't actually connect to anything, and the actual device name was /dev/dvd (without the "1"). It confused me because it gave me the same kind of "permissions" error.

I'll check my setup more when I get home and see what's what.

[pokerfan]

2. I just did the upgrade thing from 8.10 to 9.04

but with 9.10, the servers were so slow so I decided to reinstall everything so I got the iso off of bit torrent, verified the MD5 hash and had no problems burning it with Nautilus.

http://isohunt.com/torrent_details/138556137

[RoyGBiv]

3. Well, I'll be snookered ...

I am using wodim 1.1.9.

I had no idea.

I just burned an ISO to test it, and everything went fine. I will say that I normally don't burn at higher than 24x, which is what I did here, because of the cheap media I usually use.

But I think I did find part of your problem.

Note this line:

Cdrecord-Clone 2.01 (i686-pc-linux-gnu) Copyright (C) 1995-2004

This is an out-of-date version of cdrecord from what I can find that is no longer updated.

The current source (all of them actually) can be found here:

ftp://ftp.berlios.de/pub/cdrecord/alpha/

The most recent DEB I can find is from 2007.

http://old-releases.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/multiverse/c/cdrtools/

[Syrinx]

4. thanks Roy

I thought for a bit we had solved the problem. Last night I had installed cdrtools from source, and had used the newest version labeled as "old and stable" on the berlios website. But as I noted above, that version wouldn't even locate my burner. Even though I usually tend to stay away from anything labeled "alpha," I decided tonight to give it a whirl. So I downloaded and compiled the latest alpha available. And to my surprise, "cdrecord -scanbus" actually located my dvd burner. I was doing metaphorical cartwheels.

Then I did a "dummy" burn. Again, everything without a hitch. The cartwheels were kicked up a notch.

So I took out another disk from my dwindling supply of cd's, and entered the exact same command-line as before, but with the "-dummy" switch omitted. Failure. My cartwheels slowed.

So I did a complete uninstall of the GnomeBaker program and all its underlying dependencies (wodim, etc.) And then reinstalled them... figuring that I had somehow corrupted their setup.

Just like before, a dummy burn went perfectly, while a real one subsequently failed.

So, I decided to hunt down a Windows CD to test my drive that way. After about a half hour of scrounging around, I found an old copy of Windows 98. After spending another half-hour or so getting it more or less installed, Windows asked me for my registration code. D'Oh! I forgot all about those! Another forty-five minutes looking for the manual with the code printed on. And I couldn't find it anywhere.

So I wondered about using a Windows CD/DVD burner program under Wine. I go to the Wine website, and find out that a program called ImageBurn works flawlessly under Wine. So I install Wine, and download and install ImageBurn. Again, a test burn works, but a real one fails.

Then I realize the cd's I'm using are really some cheap-os that I bought one day. Though they are labeled "Maxell," cdrecord and the other programs identify them as being manufactured by a company called Ritek. And they are in assorted, very bright colors... the kind of disks that a twelve-year-old girl would probably love. I decide to try my last available DVD to burn this CD image on. It's a nice, respectable shiny silver color, and I'm certain I've used these disks with this burner before, so this will probably work, I think.

Wrong.

I didn't really want to believe that I need a new DVD burner. It's not very old, and I've probably burned no more than twenty or thirty disks with it. But I've now come to the conclusion that that must be it. That is if it's not a more serious problem with the motherboard itself.

Thanks for the helping hand! I guess I'll run into Wal-Mart or Best Buy tomorrow. :)

[RoyGBiv]

5. That sucks ...

The magical workings of an optical drive are a mystery to me, so I only go by what I "hear" out in the world. And one thing I've heard is that if you don't use it very often, the lens gets all dirty and starts to have trouble, especially with burning. That may be crap dreamed up by a drive manufacturer, but it sounds reasonable.

Last time I went into Best Buy and looked at their burners, they were all WAY overpriced. Not sure about Wal Mart. Happy hunting, though.

If you're just trying to test out the Koala, could you not mount the ISO and install it to its own partition somewhere?

[Syrinx]

6. sorry if it seemed I was ignoring you

My whole setup failed after my last message. Hopefully the disk-writing issues can be blamed on the motherboard.

I suspect that it was a weak power supply that sent the system into suicide mode, but I can't say for sure.

So I bought a 500-watt power supply. But even that wasn't enough to raise the dead.

I'm sort of piecing a system back together.

Not a gamer at all, so I don't need "XTREME" anywhere on my invoices. ;)

I was tempted by some great deals at places like OfficeMax, *Depot, and Best Buy. But I'm put off by their cases and such. It seems they lock you in, in such a way that you have little choice if even one component fails, you have to replace the whole damn thing. Or at least that's my perception. Do the big, cheap chains offer cases, motherboards, cpu's etc., as options? Again, it's my perception that they don't, but I'm often wrong.

I ended up spending about 400 on a barebones system from a local mom and pop. It's a pretty low-end Intel board, with a fairly low-end, but dual-core (for me a milestone), CPU.

When I went to pick it up Tuesday, I noticed, to my horror, that it didn't have a serial port. As you know, I'm stuck, in my specific location, with dial-up. So I had to buy a PCI serial port for an extra 20, so that I could use my serial modem.

On my way home, I swung by OfficeDepot and picked up a SATA one-terabyte hard drive. I haven't got around to installing it yet. I guess I'm pretty naive, but that seems like a hell of a lot of storage. I'm gonna have to borrow some pr0n dvd's to copy, I guess. :)

It's sort of a mind-game putting this all together. It's complicated by the fact that this motherboard has only one IDE port. So I'm kind of juggling drives until I get it all sorted out. I've already had one successful bout with straightening a pen on a 80-meg HD so that it would fit into the connector. How it got bent? :shrug: I imagine I'm responsible. :blush:

Gosh, I hope the DVD-RW works. I'm about spent out.

Thanks for all your help!. :patriot:

[RoyGBiv]

7. Computer Hell ...

... you're doing it right.

Sorry to hear about your travails.

You can actually get case options in *some* big box stores, but they're not worth it. You have to ask for it, which means you have to find a salesperson who knows what the hell you're talking about, and that's about as easy as finding a doctor who'll make a house call in trade for a chicken. Most think wanting a specific kind of case is about looks, and they're glad to point you to their selection of blutonium encrusted cases with the tailfins and modified muffler if they happen to have those, but speak of utility and the ability to open up the case and work around in it, and they'll start running a program that doesn't allow them to do anything but talk about warranties and service contracts.

I don't bother.

I worked on a machine not too long ago in one of those locked-in cases. It had a power supply that died, and other than the manufacturer in Taiwan (which didn't sell to the public) NO ONE sold a replacement except the company that built the machine. And they wouldn't sell it directly to you. You had to send them the machine and pay their technicians. It was a non-standard physical size, and the case seemed to have been built around it. I couldn't imagine how they even got it in there if that weren't the situation. I ended up having to get a new case and transplanting the parts from the old machine I could just because the guy needed a new power supply.

But you did the right thing, I believe. It's what I counsel people to do if I can't build them one.

I've had my own optical drive problems since we last communicated. The drive that always works stopped working properly. It won't consistently read a disc anymore. I've ripped hundreds of DVDs and CDs with this thing, but suddenly my ripping scripts die about half way through no matter what disc I try.

I thought at first it was some new kind of copy protection. I was trying to rip a DVD I just bought and transcode it to store on a hard drive, but the failure message I got told me that about half way through the read that it had more than one stream or PSU whereas it had begun with only one. That shouldn't happen, and the scripts can't deal with it. In testing, I eventually tried a disc I had successfully ripped just weeks ago, and it failed too with the same error.

So now I have to use the disc that won't write accurately to rip and the disc that won't read to do the writes if I'm burning something. Annoying.

[Syrinx]

8. "blutonium encrusted cases"

You're like the hacker version of Hunter Thompson. I love it.

:rofl:

[RoyGBiv]

9. I KNEW IT ...

That crazy lady from Nevada has been reading the Open Source forum at DU.

I remembered saying this as kind of joke in some post, but I could remember where.

". . .which means you have to find a salesperson who knows what the hell you're talking about, and that's about as easy as finding a doctor who'll make a house call in trade for a chicken."

Okay, I'm the only one that cares, I know, but this was driving me crazy(ier).