On Monday 20 Aug 2012 11:21:39 Philip Webb wrote: > Apologies for the elementary questions, but I'm a bit slow to change > (smile). > > In designing my new machine, I assumed that I would simply transfer > the CD drive from the existing box to the new one, > but (1) the new mobo seems to have only SATA sockets > & (2) CD drives seem to be going the same way as diskette drives, > so I'm now planning to buy a new DVD drive & to start using DVDs. > I wb using them only for back-ups, not playing music or videos. > > This looks like a good enough item : > ASUS DRW-24B1ST 24x SATA Black R 48x W 8x OEM : CAD 24,99 > > Can anyone answer a few rather basic questions ?
I'll try.
> (1) do I need to configure the kernel to find the drive ?
Yes. As a minimum have a look at BLK_DEV_SR and BLK_DEV_SR_VENDOR. You may
also need SCSI_PROC_FS for legacy applications. The AHCI drivers would
probably be enabled for your hard drive SATA controller anyway.
> (2) what software do Gentoo users use to read/write DVDs ?
From cdrecord man page (app-cdr/cdrtools):
"NAME
cdrecord - record audio or data CD, DVD or BluRay"
and of course for a GUI front you can use k3b if you use KDE applications. If
you're not using KDE consider xfburn. Not sure about Gnome applications like
Brasero that is shipping with Mint/Ubuntu these days.
> (3) are there rewritable DVDs, as there used to be rewritable CDs ?
> -- among the specs are much slower speeds labelled 'RW'.
Yes, +RW, -RW, but don't know much more on this other than older DVD writers
would only do one format not another and if you didn't pay attention to the
specification/limitations of your hardware you could end up buying the wrong
type of DVDs. Someone more experienced on recording media could answer this
better.
> (4) anything else I sb aware of ?
Given your adoption rate of new technology I suggest you consider buying a
BluRay player if not recorder, because I don't know how long it will be before
DVDs become obsolete too. Unfortunately BluRay devices were out of my price
range last time I bought hardware to justify paying the extra, so I can't
recommend any.
HTH.
--
Regards,
Mick
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