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