Nero Burning for Linux

ceasol writes "The German company Nero, developers of the award-winning Nero Burning ROM suite for Windows, now release a free version for Linux called NeroLINUX a CD/DVD Burning Software, and include many features from the Windows version. This software is proprietary but free if you registered." The OEM versions of Nero that come with many CD burners aren't sufficient, though; NeroLINUX is free-as-in-beer only if you've registered "a full version of Nero software version 6 or higher," or a "retail version or downloaded version."

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[Anonymous Coward]

A Nero keygen for Linux.

What?

[Anonymous Coward]

NeroLINUX is free-as-in-beer only if you've registered "a full version of Nero software version 6 or higher," or a "retail version or downloaded version."

So you have to buy, or already own a copy of Nero. So tell me again how this is "free-as-in-beer?"

Re:What?

[thoughtcriminal87]

1) Buy beer
2) Drink beer
3) Vomit beer
4) Drink the new, "free" beer that has just appeared.

Re:What?

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

So you have to buy, or already own a copy of Nero. So tell me again how this is "free-as-in-beer?"

Well, it's free-as-the-beer-you-steal-from-the-convenience-sh op, given that Nero is usually d/l'ed rather than purchased really.

Perhaps they account for P2P in their "free as in beer" assessment...

Re:What?

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

Or you could just bypass 1), 2) and 3) and get a Bud or a Corona. Same taste, it's not free though...

Re:Useless

[ari_j]

You have to remember - there are three kinds of Linux users. Those who want to keep usability down to try to impress themselves by using it, those who want to increase usability so that their grandmothers can use it, and your grandmother. The majority of users are not members of the first group. Incidentally, the majority of users also do not assume a moniker derived from women's clothing.

This *is* important.

[Anonymous Coward]

Cut the free software crap. This is a mainstream company willing to take pay-per-use apps on Linux seriously.

Don't forget that the OS itself is pretty much commodity. Its the apps that count, and for a mature and *decent* app to make it to Linux is important news.

Re:This *is* important.

[malkavian]

Hmm.. The fact a commercial company released a product says they're at least reasonably serious about it. They did, after all, pay developers to put it out there..

As to how it can cause OSS harm.. Where on earth did you get that from? Nero producing a product has nothing to do with hardware companies making proprietary changes. They've always been able to do that, and always have. Can you say "Winmodem" or "Windows Printer"? Both designed with proprietary interfaces which Linux can't use.
The former I stayed well away from, the latter, well, I run a Konica Minolta magicolour 2300W. Works just fine from my Linux boxes.

Now, if someone produced hardware that linux just couldn't talk to, then Nero would be stuffed, as it wouldn't be able to use the api to talk to the hardware anyway, at least until a driver writer finds a way to talk to the hardware properly again.

It may just have skipped past your attention, but the whole 'trusted computing' initiative is heading to put just those copy controls in every device.
Now, if Nero has the bits built in there to cope with it from the moment it's released, and the rest of the open tools lag, at least there's some product out there that can handle the slack until Open works it out, and gets back in the game.
If it doesn't, no big deal. People use what they feel like.

I think about twelve years back, you'd have been one of those voices saying "Linux. That gives us nothing new. It's just another UNIX alike. What do we need that for? It'll only hamper the BSDs and not provide us with anything worthwhile in return!".

A product is a product. I'm glad Nero are in the market. They're offering something to compliment their windows product, for those people that may be wanting to move from Windows to Linux, and just want something they already know and are familiar with.

Anything that makes the transition easier is a great thing.

The great thing about OSS is it's a really open market. You can charge what you want for your product (including free). Nero want money for you to be able to have their product (you have to have the retail version, or buy one to get it). That's fine! If you don't want it, don't get it. Nobody uses it, and it'll go away (just like MusicMatch Jukebox for Linux did way back when).
But, it's there. And there are some more developers who've been exposed to Linux.
And as Ballmer is always chanting, it's all about "Developers, developers, developers".

This Makes Me See How Important FOSS Is To Me

[TheWanderingHermit]

I misread this the first time through and thought it was saying a free version was available for Linux -- and didn't see the part about you had to have a registered Windows version. Even without the extra gotcha, this made me realize how important free (as in speech) software is to me.

I started using Linux somewhere around 1998, and moved everything (except compatibility testing) around 2000/2001. Since then I learned how to add almost any program or game I wanted with rpm -ivh {package_name}, then urpmi {package_name}, and now apt-get install {package_name}. It's not just the ease of use, but knowing that it is available, to me and anyone who wants it, that I can modify it or pay to have it modified, that I can help debug it, and even suggest new features.

I (mis)read this story and my first thoughts were, 1) Why bother, I've got programs that do almost all, to 2) But it's hard to do some of the DVD authoring that Nero will help with, to 3) But Nero controls it.

That's when I realized how important FOSS is to me and my company. I hadn't realized that I actually avoid commercial software now, and prefer FOSS, since I can make bug reports, make suggestions, and even modify if I need to. I also realized I do NOT want software (any more) that another company controls and can decide to remove from the market, or bastardize so it's no longer the program I liked. If it's FOSS, I know I'll almost always be able to find an older version if I need it, and that I can always locate it and re-install it easily if it gets horked.

So let Nero do what they want. I know in a year or two we'll see better DVD authoring under Linux (and eventually even see professional video editing in FOSS). This story helped me realize I can no longer deal with paying for software with fewer freedoms than that which apt-get installs for me. I don't want software someone else has total control over. (Okay, well maybe Myst and it's sequals, but we all know games are another story...)

Commercial Desktop App

[Anonymous Coward]

Despite there being open source burning programs, I think it is positive to see commercial desktop software being developed for Linux.

I am not trying to say Nero is better/worse than the alternatives, but now there is an additional alternative -- and software companies focusing on desktop apps are starting to take a Linux desktop more seriously.

Slashdot 2 days late?

[BestNicksRTaken]

This has already been discussed to death on osnews.com and fedoraforum.org

Essentially it is using the GnomeToaster GUI under license (not GPL) with a Nero API/drivers backend.

It's closed source and doesn't include Nero Recode (aka DVD Shrink) or anything other than Nero Burning ROM.

Catch-22 as usual...

[supabeast!]

If a commercial software vendor doesn't support linux people bitch. If a commercial software vendor does support it people bitch that the software isn't GPL. If the software gets GPL'd, people bitch that it hasn't been ported to their distros of choice.

And then the linux community wonders why so few companies bother to code for linux.

Re:No ISO support ...

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

It only supports .nra, though.

I didn't realize Charlton Heston owned Nero stock...

Re:But can it compete?

[Zorilla]

Parent post is not flamebait. It was a general comment on how uncustomizable the Gnome GUI is. When you can't do so much as change your mouse cursor from the preferencess window and have to re-point your /etc/alternatives/x-mouse-cursor to a new theme file instead, things are very wrong.

And the Trolls come out to play...

[Maxim Kovalenko]

Listen people, whenever a commercial application is ported over to Linux it is good for the effort to get Linux on the desktop. It doesn't matter if there are already command line tools out there that will do the same thing. So what? Yeah there are graphical front ends available for these command line tools available...but once again, so what? If they support linux, I have to support them. If you prefer FOSS applications, that's cool. But we need the commercial applications as well and this is one of the best commercial applications out there. (Plus you get legal codes as well. Something that ought to wipe out afew potential legal problems in the future.) Personally, I don't see why all of you people are crying and moaning. It seems like whenever a commercial company brings stuff over to Linux people do nothing but badmouth it and go on about an open-source solution that isn't as "full-featured" or "intuitive" as the commercial application. From what I have seen of the behavioof most of the people who have commented about this here and in other places. There are a whole lot of fan-boys who talk a fine game about "Desktop Linux for the Masses" Most of them simply want Linux to stay a fringe operating system so they can all argue about KDE/Gnome, play with your command lines, and spit on normal computer users with a disrespectful, elitist attitude. Mod me a troll for this post if you want to...but in the end it is about "choice" Nero has just given me an additonal "choice" That is a good thing.

Re:But can it compete?

[0x461FAB0BD7D2]

This is the kind of attitude that is keeping commercial software companies off Linux.

Yes, most of the needs of the FOSS/Linux/BSD community are taken care of by the FOSS community and a whole variety of free software, so much so that most opportunities/markets are saturated.

However, when a well-recognized company tries to enter the Linux market, it faces comments such as the parent's. Why would any commercial software company take the Linux community seriously, as a potential market, when the Linux community does not take them seriously, unless it is free?

So NeroLinux is not free. Perhaps it is worse than GnomeBaker and K3B. But at least they recognize the Linux community. Encouraging Nero to try harder, rather than posting trollish comments about how it's not free and not as good as other software, would do more to help Linux's image in the corporate world.

After all, the FOSS community is not the be-all and end-all of software development.

Re:Useless

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you used to using the command line? If so, probably that made the difference.

Because I *never* had any problems at all getting Nero (v. 5) to work, even the first time. Click the "new CD" button (in the same location that the new document is in every other GUI ever made), pick the type of CD you want, drag the files you want from the hard drive window to the new window that represents the CD, click the "write CD" button or choose "write CD" from the file menu, click burn.

I never had to look in any documentation to figure out how to do anything that wasn't pretty complicated.

After reading the ENTIRE mkisofs man page, I still don't know if I know how to actually write the ISO to the CD, I just have a pointer to look at cdwrite and this -o option that sounds like I can add /dev/acd0, but the warning in the intro paragraphs make me wonder about this. I am confused about the filenames that will appear on the CD; it looks like mkisofs will truncate them to 8.3 format unless you use -I, but is this using Joliet extensions or just using ISO9660 to its fullest? I still have absolutely no clue how to make and audio CD (and don't even know what tool I would use to do so). I'm thinking that unless I spend a long time crafting that include file for the -i option, which "doesn't work very well", I'll need to make a copy (or at least symbolic links) of all my files in another directory because I essentially never make a CD based off just a single directory structure.

I'm not trying to judge you our your opitions, I'm just trying to show that there are very legitimate reasons why someone will prefer a GUI. They are almost universally easier to use than text tools, as you have to go to documentation to figure out how to do things with text tools whereas you can poke around for a minute or two with a GUI. (I'm talking Unix style text tools here, not like NCurses stuff, or even programs that present you with a series of text menus.)

Of course, there are legitimate reasons for liking a command line too. It's scriptable. You can set it up to do repetitive tasks automatically. (Not very useful for CD burning since you still need to put in new CDs, but this is an exception to the rule.) If you know what you're doing, it's often faster than a GUI. (Though again, I can essentially gurantee I can find files in a graphical tree much faster than with a command line, especially for something like CD backups where I'm looking in many of the directories to see if there's anything I need to archive. This is again an exception to the general case.)

But to say that a CLI program is more convenient or that you're better off with a CLI is nothing more than your personal opinion.