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How to write CDs on pc064

(Provisional instruction for the (super)user -- version 0.1 of 8. November 1999)

Abstract

The present text contains only the most basic information concerning writing CDs with the Mitsumi CR-4802-TE CD-Writer, installed in pc064.

1) General Information.

On the Harddisk of pc064 a partition "/burncd" was created. Its size amounts approx. 900 MByte and it is readable and writeable by any user. When writing CDs, this partition should be used for the CD-images (see below). After finishing his work, every user should remove his files from this partition to free it for other users.

Only the superuser can write CDs directly; a general user has to use "sudo" (please contact the system administrator to get the proper permission).

2) Writing a data CD in the text regime.

Creating an image.

First place all files which we want to burn into a certein directory, e.g.

/home/user_name/directory

Then change directory to "/burncd" and by the command "mkisofs" create the file "cd_image" containing the image of the CD you want to burn:

cd /burncd mkisofs -r -o cd_image /home/user_name/directory

If enerything works for you a file "cd_image" appears in the directory "/burncd". According to the type of media, its size should not extend approximately 700 MByte or 650 MByte.

Creating of a binary copy of a data CD.

First put the CD into the Pioneer CD-player (slot-in). Then change directory to "/burncd" and by the command "dd" create the file "cd_image" containing the image of the CD

cd /burncd dd if=/dev/scd0 of=cd_image

If enerything works for you a file "cd_image" appears in the directory "/burncd". According to the type of the CD, its size should not extend approximately 700 MByte or 650 MByte.The music CDs cannot be copied this way.

Writing (burning) the CD.

Put an empty medium into the upper CD-ROM (Mitsumi). Wait till its control light changes from green blinking to orange. Then issue (in directory "/burncd") the following command

cdrecord -v speed=4 dev=1,0,0 -data cd_image

and wait, util the CD gets written. In the course of writing the control light is red.

After writing is finished the red control light is replaced by orange. Then, by issuing the command

cdrecord dev=1,0,0 -eject

you can release the written CD.

3) Blanking CDRW ("fast blanking").

Put the rewritable medium (CDRW) into the upper CD-ROM (Mitsumi). Wait, till its control light changes from green blinking to orange. Then issue the command

cdrecord -v -speed=4 dev=1,0,0 blank=fast

4) Burning of audio CDs.

Create images of individual tracks.

Usually, audio CDs contain individual tracks. You can read these tracks by means of the program called "cdparanoia". In what follows we assume that the CD we want to burn contains 14 tracks. Put the CD into the lower CD-ROM (Pioneer, "slot-in"). Change to "/burncd", remove all files with the ending ".waw" and create/edit the shell-script createtracks with the following contents:

#!/bin/bash for i in 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 do cdparanoia $i "track$i.wav" done

Notice the line beginning with the command "for". It should contain the list of all tracks of the audio CD we want to burn (in the present case, the list contains all tracks of the CD, i.e. 01 to 14). By command "chmod 755 createtracks" we ensure that the script can be run. Than we start the script:

./createtracks

and wait until it creates the images of all tracks. In our case the command "ls -l track*.wav" showed:

-rw-r----- 1 root root 45633548 listopad 8 17:36 track01.wav -rw-r----- 1 root root 53620940 listopad 8 17:38 track02.wav -rw-r----- 1 root root 78573308 listopad 8 17:39 track03.wav -rw-r----- 1 root root 64687100 listopad 8 17:41 track04.wav -rw-r----- 1 root root 32462348 listopad 8 17:42 track05.wav -rw-r----- 1 root root 34480364 listopad 8 17:43 track06.wav -rw-r----- 1 root root 37356860 listopad 8 17:44 track07.wav -rw-r----- 1 root root 37067564 listopad 8 17:44 track08.wav -rw-r----- 1 root root 58070924 listopad 8 17:46 track09.wav -rw-r----- 1 root root 35813948 listopad 8 17:47 track10.wav -rw-r----- 1 root root 35157740 listopad 8 17:48 track11.wav -rw-r----- 1 root root 40807244 listopad 8 17:49 track12.wav -rw-r----- 1 root root 51661724 listopad 8 17:50 track13.wav -rw-r----- 1 root root 30745388 listopad 8 17:51 track14.wav

(In the above listed order the tracks will later be written on the CD, as well).

Writing (burning) the CD.

Put an empty medium into the upper CD-ROM (Mitsumi). Wait till its control light changes from green blinking to orange. Then issue (in directory "/burncd") the following command

cdrecord -v speed=2 dev=1,0,0 -audio track*.wav

and wait, util the CD gets written. In the course of writing the control light is red.

After writing is finished the red control light is replaced by orange. Then, by issuing the command

cdrecord dev=1,0,0 -eject

you can release the written CD.

General remarks.

You can burn not only the audio files ending with ".wav", but also files ending with ".au" or ".cdr". (The format ".cdr" is the native format of cdrecord, if you use the other formats an automatic conversion takes place.)
The conversion between various formats of accoustic files can be performed manually by means of "sox".
Obviously the accoustic data to be burned into a CD can be provided by any other means. E.g. they can be provided by someone else, created on any other computer, recorded by means of a sound card... The only condition is that they should be 16bit encoded, stereo and sampled with the frequency 44100 Hz.

5) Usage of "xcdroast"

Will be added later (I am waiting for a stable "bug-free" release).

Jan Kučera
Monday 8 November 1999

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