HOWTO - Burn CDs and DVDs

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The first thing to note is that this guide is for KateOS III. It is specifically written for KateOS 3.0b1, but it should also apply to future versions of KateOS 3.0 as well.

Burning CDs

Users coming from Windows might find it especially confusing to burn CDs and DVDs with Linux tools, but once you get used to the tools, you'll realize how much easier and more convenient it is.

Most users probably want to be able to burn CDs with a Graphical User Interface. KateOS comes with several different graphical programs for the task. Perhaps the easiest one to use is Graveman (in the Xfce menu, it's under Accessories, or it can be launched in a terminal by typing graveman). To make an Audio CD using Graveman, select Audio CD from the list on the left, and add tracks (in several formats) using the + Add audio tracks... button.

Once you've added all the tracks you want, click Next. In most cases, the default settings are fine. Click Write tracks... to burn the audio CD.

Burning Data CDs or DVDs is just as simple as with Audio CDs. You can Add Files and/or Directories, and you can use the CD (DVD) Information tab to edit the volume name, etc.

Graveman also allows you to burn premade ISO images and make 1:1 copies of CDs (but not DVDs for some reason...), and also to make images of CDs. To do that, just select Duplicate CD from the list on the left. In the Duplicate from and Write to fields, you can select either a device or an image file. For example, if you want to make a copy of a CD, select the source (read-from) drive in the Duplicate from field, and the destination (write-to) drive in the Write to field. Also, you can browse for an image by selecting ISO file... for either device.

In the Other operations section, Graveman also allows you to Erase a CDRW, Format a DVDRW, and Fixate a CD.

Graveman also has a manpage (type "man graveman" into a terminal) that can help you out further, or you can see the Graveman webpage [1].

There are other GUI options for burning CDs in KateOS: Xfburn in the Accessories menu and X-CD-Roast in the System menu.

The other way to burn CDs is from the commandline using the cdrecord command. This won't be covered extensively in this document (perhaps in a later one). You can use cdrecord -scanbus to figure out which device to use. Read the manpage ("man cdrecord" from a terminal) to learn more about cdrecord.

Burning DVDs

The only way I know about burning DVD images in KateOS without installing Gnome or KDE is with the growisofs program on the commandline (you can use Graveman to master your own data DVDs). Here's the way to do it:

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

Where dvd-image.iso is the DVD image you want to burn. growisofs also has a useful manpage if you need more help ("man growisofs" from a terminal).