Hi Folks,
Can experienced persons recommend an external USB DVD reader and writer which works well with Linux?
(I would be driving it from a Red Hat 9 laptop).
Also: would there be any problems writing files to it from filesystems on other machines which are NFS-mouted on the laptop?
(I would chiefly want to use this to make backups of large chunks of filespace, and there would not be space on the laptop to clone the files from the other machines, only one of which has a USB port which may or may not be OK for this -- SuSE 7.1 from around 2000).
Thanks for any advice, Ted.
-------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) Ted.Harding@nessie.mcc.ac.uk Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 14-Mar-06 Time: 16:58:34 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------
On Tue, 2006-03-14 at 16:58 +0000, Ted.Harding@nessie.mcc.ac.uk wrote:
Hi Folks,
Can experienced persons recommend an external USB DVD reader and writer which works well with Linux?
(I would be driving it from a Red Hat 9 laptop).
Not specifically no, But I am really fond of Lacie kit. At the lower end of the market Freecom drives aren't bad either.
Also: would there be any problems writing files to it from filesystems on other machines which are NFS-mouted on the laptop?
Most modern drives are "BURN Free" and therefore protected against buffer under-runs so even if your network cannot keep up with the writes you should be ok.....However you are going to be careful on how you set up the burn process (a lot of GUI disk burning tools prepare an image first) and even with the more traditional mkiso followed by cdrecord you are going to have to make sure you create the iso on the NFS drive and then burn it from that location.
Just another thought...normally it is possible to replace the Laptop's internal CD ROM drive with a CDRW...They are pretty generic (apart from a few "standards" for mounting the front bezel) and a rare master/slave issue (that only usually bites on some Toshiba machines) Just thinking that from both a portability and cost perspective this may be a better option.
On 14-Mar-06 Wayne Stallwood wrote:
On Tue, 2006-03-14 at 16:58 +0000, Ted.Harding@nessie.mcc.ac.uk wrote:
Hi Folks,
Can experienced persons recommend an external USB DVD reader and writer which works well with Linux?
(I would be driving it from a Red Hat 9 laptop).
Not specifically no, But I am really fond of Lacie kit. At the lower end of the market Freecom drives aren't bad either.
Also: would there be any problems writing files to it from filesystems on other machines which are NFS-mouted on the laptop?
Most modern drives are "BURN Free" and therefore protected against buffer under-runs so even if your network cannot keep up with the writes you should be ok.....However you are going to be careful on how you set up the burn process (a lot of GUI disk burning tools prepare an image first) and even with the more traditional mkiso followed by cdrecord you are going to have to make sure you create the iso on the NFS drive and then burn it from that location.
Just another thought...normally it is possible to replace the Laptop's internal CD ROM drive with a CDRW...They are pretty generic (apart from a few "standards" for mounting the front bezel) and a rare master/slave issue (that only usually bites on some Toshiba machines) Just thinking that from both a portability and cost perspective this may be a better option.
Many thanks for these thoughts, Wayne.
Re the last one: It's a rather old Compaq Armada 1750, and looking at it I feel doubtful about being able to replace the existing CDR drive. However, it's an interesting idea and, who knows, might work!
The ISO would need to be created on one of the other machines (the SuSE 7.2, 2.4.4 kernel) since that's the only one with enough spare HD space.
Maybe the thing would be to replace its existing internal CD-R/W with an internal DVD-R/W (which might be cheaper than the external USB anyway), provded I can install appropriate drivers. Writing CDs is already somewhat temperamental!
Any further comments welome -- I've never dabbled yet in the DVD world.
Best wishes, Ted.
-------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) Ted.Harding@nessie.mcc.ac.uk Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 14-Mar-06 Time: 22:51:14 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------
On Tue, 2006-03-14 at 22:51 +0000, Ted.Harding@nessie.mcc.ac.uk wrote:
Re the last one: It's a rather old Compaq Armada 1750, and looking at it I feel doubtful about being able to replace the existing CDR drive. However, it's an interesting idea and, who knows, might work!
As far as the hardware is concerned it's just an IDE drive with a different connector (which is always the same across laptops) makes no difference whether it's DVD CD Reader Writer whatever.
As long as you are not planning on booting from it, it doesn't even matter if the Bios cannot recognise it (although worst case is usually that the Bios will just see it as a CD ROM which is fine for booting..even from DVD's)
What may bite you is the IDE interface spec (UltraDMA ATA100 etc etc) Your Compaq is getting on a bit and I am not sure how the modern slimline drives behave if plugged into an old ATA 33 or 66 interface. Maybe if you can find mention of that in dmesg or /var/log/messages.
Physically the drives are all the same with the exception of the mounting hardware (which screws on) the front (which un-clips with care) and the exact position of said mounting clips (which can vary sometimes)
No drivers as such should be required, just the right userspace tools for dvd writing and either the IDE-SCSI emulation (yuck) or a kernel that supports IDE disk burning (anything 2.6 but I think it was backported into later 2.4's as well)
On 3/14/06, Ted Harding Ted.Harding@nessie.mcc.ac.uk wrote:
On 14-Mar-06 Wayne Stallwood wrote:
On Tue, 2006-03-14 at 16:58 +0000, Ted.Harding@nessie.mcc.ac.uk wrote:
Can experienced persons recommend an external USB DVD reader and writer which works well with Linux? Also: would there be any problems writing files to it from filesystems on other machines which are NFS-mouted on the laptop?
Most modern drives are "BURN Free" and therefore protected against buffer under-runs so even if your network cannot keep up with the writes you should be ok.....However you are going to be careful on how you set up the burn process (a lot of GUI disk burning tools prepare an image first) and even with the more traditional mkiso followed by cdrecord you are going to have to make sure you create the iso on the NFS drive and then burn it from that location.
Just another thought...normally it is possible to replace the Laptop's internal CD ROM drive with a CDRW
The ISO would need to be created on one of the other machines (the SuSE 7.2, 2.4.4 kernel) since that's the only one with enough spare HD space.
In which case I'd recommend upgrading the laptop's harddisk. Does it look easy to replace, like Thinkpads, or buried under the keyboard like some Viaos?
Tim.
On Tue, 2006-03-14 at 23:37 +0000, Tim Green wrote:
In which case I'd recommend upgrading the laptop's harddisk. Does it look easy to replace, like Thinkpads, or buried under the keyboard like some Viaos?
Ahh Vaio's are real easy...you just gently drop them on the table and one of the bigger pieces you'll sweep up will be the hard drive :-)
Compaq's of that age nearly always have the Hard drive under a panel on the bottom...memory is probably under the KB though.
On Tue, 2006-03-14 at 22:51 +0000, Ted.Harding@nessie.mcc.ac.uk wrote:
Re the last one: It's a rather old Compaq Armada 1750, and looking at it I feel doubtful about being able to replace the existing CDR drive. However, it's an interesting idea and, who knows, might work!
Given that I would forget about a USB DVD...DVD burning is going to be hell on USB 1.1 and even if it worked the massively extended burn times aren't going to do the drive any good at all.
-
Ted.Harding＠nessie.mcc.ac.uk -
Tim Green -
Wayne Stallwood