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Free DVD Recording Tool For Linux?

Posted by timothy on from the never-satisfied dept.

jobsagoodun writes " cdrecord-ProDVD is OK for burning DVDs but (i) it grumbles pointlessly about device names and (ii) it has a weird binary-only license that expires every six months or so. There are some Free forks off cdrtools - dvd+rw/+r/-r ,dvdrtools and this patch - do any of them make a good replacement?"

2 of 160 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Is this a joke? by Minna+Kirai · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Freshmeat.net exists and its platform and even license independent.

    First, note that "k3b" is one of the least-informative program names imaginable. It provides ZERO descriptive data (aside from possibly the fact that it uses KDE). Nobody can be expected to guess that she wants "k3b" to make DVDs. So what happens if you search for a "DVD burner" on freshmeat.net?

    Searching for "DVD burner" gives 0 hits. "DVD burn" gives 8 hits, but k3b isn't one of them. "cd burn" gives 7 hits, again without mentioning k3b.

    Searching for "DVD" by itself produces 128 results, but again, k3b isn't in there. So apparently a freshmeat search is useless, unless you already knew the cryptic 3-character app name.

    A google-search (such as for "linux dvd burn") would've faster and more fruitful. Rather sad that freshmeat isn't a good place to search for Free software...

  2. k3b by tiger99 · · Score: 5, Insightful
    When I last stuck a blank DVD in the drive some weeks ago, it just worked. k3b did indeed open, it was so uncannily like the way a certain broken OS works for CD writing, if something like Roxio is installed.

    I become more impressed with kde each time I use it, which is daily. The level of integration must surely be the equal of its closed-source rivals.

    BTW I do most of my work on SuSE 9.1, but it (kde) seems much the same on the other machines, Xandros, FC2 and even FreeBSD (although I have not yet tried DVD writing on the latter).

    I get the impression that each of kde and gnome is in itself a much bigger achievement than the kernel, and certainly they are important because new users or prospective users see the GUI first. They don't care about the window manager, or the X implementation, or even the kernel. But Linux distros are clearly doing something right.

    BTW my DVD writer is multi-mode (+/-R and RW, and RAM) and the type of blank disc was correctly identified without any messing about by me, much to my surprise, as I have seen the "other" OS have problems.