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I remember many CD recording programs requiring root access of some kind or another to work correctly. I think that things have changed in the last few years, and you no longer require root access to burn a CD, but I specifically remember having to launch xcdroast as root in order to burn CDs.

I just add a bit on that list from top of my head.
Although I think the listed app goes beyond what the so called 'average pc user' wants, but there goes...

1. Konqueror ( http://www.konqueror.org/ )

2. Email - Sylpheed ( http://sylpheed.good-day.net/ )

3. I think Evolution is more like in this place.

4. Lately "Sound Juicer" is taking more attention too

5. VideoLAN aka VLC ( http://www.videolan.org/ ) and Ogle ( http://www.dtek.chalmers.se/groups/dvd/ ) [and Goggles ( http://www.fifthplanet.net/goggles.html ) for Ogle GUI wrapper] for DVD watching.

6. There are plenty way to do this, but the typical ones could be 'Jinzora' ( http://www.jinzora.org/ ) and 'MusicPD' ( http://www.mpd.org/ ), even plain Apache does it fine too, in a way.

8. If you want easier to manage iptables wrapper, Shorewall ( http://www.shorewall.net/ ) and there are other wrappers too.

9. KOffice ( http://www.koffice.org/ ) and by individual components, Abiword ( http://www.abisource.com/ ), Gnumeric ( http://www.gnome.org/projects/gnumeric/ ), Gnucash ( http://www.gnucash.org/ )

10. Inkscape ( http://www.inkscape.org/ ) or Sodipodi ( http://www.sodipodi.com/ ) for vector graphics.

11. Miranda ( http://miranda-im.org/ ). Windows only.

13. Hmm , Samba? ( http://www.samba.org/ ), WedDAV (Look parent post), FTP (plenty ftp daemons, ex : http://www.proftpd.org/, http://vsftpd.beasts.org/ etc)

16. GPhoto ( http://www.gphoto.org/ ), EOG ( http://www.gnome.org/ ? ), GQView ( http://gqview.sourceforge.net/ ). The latters are for just viewing mainly.

20. FreeNX ( http://www.nomachine.com/ , http://freenx.berlios.de/ ) http://www.poptop.org/ ), L2TPd ( http://sourceforge.net/projects/l2tpd ), RP-L2TPd ( http://sourceforge.net/projects/rp-l2tp/ )

24. Postfix ( http://www.postfix.org/ ), Sendmail ( http://www.sendmail.org/ ), Exim ( http://www.exim.org/ ), Cyrus ( http://asg.web.cmu.edu/cyrus/imapd/ ), Xmail ( http://www.xmailserver.org/ ), qmail ( http://www.qmail.org/ )

25. Spamassassin ( http://spamassassin.apache.org/ )

26. Same as above.

27. XSane ( http://www.xsane.org/ ) for sane frontends.

30. Buzzmachines ( http://www.buzzmachines.com/ ) I could be wrong...

31. 'various GUI frontends' - X CD Roast ( http://www.xcdroast.org/ ), K3B ( http://k3b.sourceforge.net/ )

32. Don't know any opensource ones...

When I got my DVD writer I had already been using xcdroast (and implicitly cdrtools) for a long time with CD's. It seemed the simplest to just get cdrecord-prodvd for this setup.

It amounted to downloading one (1) binary file, placing it as executable in the xcdroast bin dir and a copy/paste operation of the license key from a README found at the same place as the binary.

It worked right away, took a couple of minutes not counting the download and now I can use xcdroast with DVD's as well as CD's without any headache at all.

True, the license is only for home and personal use and will expire after about a year, but really, for a home user that's all I need.

I like my DVD/CD writing graphical, so there. By comparison with xcdroast, K3B always seemed like a kitchen sink to me. I've tried it several times but couldn't get used to it. Since so many people seem to be very happy with K3B I must be the odd one out.

CDs are Roasted, not baked.

I think that the only issue with Open Source boils down to this: The things that nobody wants to do, but somebody has to. Nobody wants to think about documentation.

I will second that opinion, and run with it a little. But first let me say that this is a self-perpetuating situation: geek1 is using OSS and needs a program to do xyz->geek1 looks on freshmeat->geek finds program for xyy written by geek2 using OSS->geek1 mods xyy program to be xyz program and reposts to freshmeat, playing geek2 to someone else's geek1, writing minimal docs that only a geek can understand. The only way to break this cycle of unintelligible geek-oriented documentation is to have some large company ( *cough* Novell *cough* ) start paying people to write OSS docs with pretty screenshots and small words aimed at Mary Lou and Jimmy Wal-Mart Shopper-- otherwise, it will never get done.

I don't write new code becuase of the bragging rights, or becuase of the potential for 3. PROFIT!!! the reason I modify software is that I have a problem that I can't solve with the software that is currently available.

I write new code because I can't make the stuff I found on freshmeat or sourceforge do what I want it to do: it doesn't play nice with my db format, or it messes up the layout on my web pages, or it won't take my track list from xmms as a template for the order of tracks on the cd (*) So I write a little code, or tinker with what's already there, to meet my specific need. And if I come up with a solution that I think is elegant, maybe I'll submit my changes to the guy who is listed as the main contact at the place I got it from.

But your job is to provide the "service layer",

No, my job is something else entirely, and my job deals with software only tangentially. I use OSS at home because it's more secure, more flexible and more stable than Microsoft. I made the jump from windows98 because I needed a NAT box, and I didn't have any money to buy a standalone router, but I did need internet access through one DSL line for 3 computers at the same time. I solved that problem with OSS, but I didn't take the time to write documentation for it-- I HAVE OTHER THINGS I'D RATHER BE DOING. I don't get paid to write software, or write docs for someone else's software. Once my specific problem is solved, I don't care if anyone else uses the code I write... I just get on with my life.

And I argue that this is where the problem with documentation lies- if I write software that is good enough to solve my problem, then I use it, no docs required. Since I know what problem it's supposed to solve, and how it solves the problem, I don't need documentation. And since I don't care if anyone else uses my mods, I'm not going to go out of my way to write docs that no one will ever read, so that this hypothetical imaginary someone else who wants to use my software to take xmms playlists and use them to order tracks to burn cd's can do so without parsing the raw code for themselves. I think that in general people write docs for OSS only when the user base for a given program is large enough that it takes less time to write a howto than it would take to respond to questions individually. Before that threshold, it's just not worth the effort to write good docs! After all, my problem is solved, remember?

(*) the program I had these issues with was x-cd-roast, an excellent GUI frontend for cdrecord maintained by Thomas Niederreiter. I know, I know, I could just use **insert program name here** instead, but I tried 3 or 4 other guis, and was using fvwm2 instead of KDE, and... it ended up being easier to just write a script to translate the .m3u file to the .lst file that xcdroast wanted. If I'm wrong, and someone out there wants my script, reply here and I'll send it to you :-)

One package.

xcdroast

Works like a charm, does everything for you. I found burning CDs under Linux impossible until I found that package, and now I don't bother with rebooting into Windows to burn them.

I have had similar frustrations trying to get my printer at home to work. I've never been able to do it properly. Its an HP USB inkjet and it works just find from Windows 98. I really wish I had a postscript laser printer, since those are so easy to set up from Linux. (Never mind that Windows makes it harder than it should be to install one.)

As far as the CD burner goes, she had problems getting it to work on Redhat. I've found that whatever version comes with RedHat is pretty bad. Upgrading to the newest version of XCDRoast solved all my problems. They even have RPMs that are a breeze to install in RedHat. Yes you have to run it as root, but only once. You can give anybody permission to run it from its graphical interface.

xcdroast can be run as non-root, and the GUI isn't bad.

I believe that linux cdrecord has to run over scsi-ide, so make sure to use the scsi-ide module.

The following are some relevant docs:

cdrecord They mention something about dvd-r, so it seems that cdrecord can record dvds. They say it works on most unices.

The frontend i use

http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/CD-Writing-HOWTO.htm l
and the obligatory HOWTO.

Hope that helps