kelvin quee

During my 3 month long part-time job, I was lucky enough to be allowed to learn Macromedia Freehand for work. There and then, I was damning myself for not actually knowing it earlier.

To say the least, it was so fun and useful. That was the first time I was actually tempted to go purchase a legal copy and use it at home.

But thanks to the wonderful folks at Inkscape, now we have a, though not as powerful, equally useful open source vector graphics tool. The best part is, you don’t have to be running on Linux, Inkscape is available on Windows and OS X too. To give yourself more reasons to use Inkscape, go drool on the screenshots.

Anyway, even as a newbie in vector graphics, I found Inkscape 0.42 surprisingly easy to use (or maybe it’s because I’m new). Everything was inituitive, perhaps the only downside being that the floating menus are abit too huge. There’s that sense of unfamiliarity, perhaps brought over from Freehand, but nothing like the shock I got when switching from Photoshop to Gimp.

I think Inkscape 0.42 is a great replacement for Freehand, if you are not really into the more advance features. I’m don’t have much high requirements. Looking from the screenshots, I think I’ll be just happy enough if I can emulate all of the techniques shown. In some sense, a simpler product actually gives more room to the creative mind.

If you’ve never heard of a vector graphics program, Inkscape is a great introduction into this field. It’s the right tool for making signs, designing brochures and posters or just for the very necessary diagram to insert into your word document. C’mon, everyone’s sick of Microsoft Office’s Autoshapes.

It’s the right time to get a bit creative, now that the tools are available for free. Previously, you’ve to fork out a fortune (or break some laws) just to gain access to those prohibitebly expensive tools from Macromeda and Adobe. Now, it’s free. What’s stopping you?

Go download Inkscape now.

I scoured the web for easy to follow instructions for burning my SuSE Linux 9.3 using Ubuntu Linux but I couldn’t find detailed ones. Most of them just referred me to use k3b, which I didn’t want to.

So here’s an (hopefully) easy to follow instructions for burning DVDs in Linux using cdrecord-ProDVD.

First of all, cdrecord-ProDVD seems to be a project of cdrecord. Correct me if I’m wrong.

1) Download cdrecord-ProDVD latest binary and license key (cdrecord-wrapper.sh free for non-commercial use).

2) Place them both in your /usr/bin directory. Chmod them if you need to (sudo chmod +x filename). You might also have to rename the binary to cdrecord-ProDVD so that the wrapper can find it.

3) You’ll need to issue a command along this line:
sudo cdrecord-wrapper.sh dev=(device name) path-to-iso

As you might already have realised, you’ll accessing the binary via the wrapper.

To find out the device name to your dvd burner, use mount.

kelvinq@ubuntu:~/Desktop/downloads$ mount
/dev/hda2 on / type ext3 (rw,errors=remount-ro)
proc on /proc type proc (rw)
sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,gid=5,mode=620)
tmpfs on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw)
/dev/hda5 on /home type ext3 (rw)
/dev on /.dev type unknown (rw,bind)
none on /dev type tmpfs (rw,size=5M,mode=0755)
usbfs on /proc/bus/usb type usbfs (rw)
/dev/hdb on /media/cdrom0 type iso9660 (ro,noexec,nosuid,nodev,user=kelvinq)


Your device name is then /dev/hdb. You can of course symlink it if you want to, but I don’t find a need.

4) Once you issue that command, cdrecord-ProDVD assumes that you are writing in tao mode. If your drive, like mine, doesn’t support it, you’ll get an error. To find out what mode your drive supports, issue cdrecord-wrapper.sh dev=/dev/hdb -checkdrive

kelvinq@ubuntu:~/Desktop/downloads$ cdrecord-ProDVD dev=/dev/hdb -checkdrive
Cdrecord-ProDVD-Clone 2.01b31 (i686-pc-linux-gnu) Copyright (C) 1995-2004 J\uffffrg Schilling
Unlocked features:
Limited features:
scsidev: '/dev/hdb'
devname: '/dev/hdb'
scsibus: -2 target: -2 lun: -2
Warning: Open by 'devname' is unintentional and not supported.
Linux sg driver version: 3.5.27
Using libscg version 'schily-0.8'.
Device type : Removable CD-ROM
Version : 0
Response Format: 2
Capabilities :
Vendor_info : 'BENQ '
Identifikation : 'DVD DD DW1620 '
Revision : 'B7T9'
Device seems to be: Generic mmc2 DVD-R/DVD-RW.
cdrecord-ProDVD: This version of cdrecord limits DVD-R/DVD-RW support to -dummy or 1 GB real.
cdrecord-ProDVD: If you need full DVD-R/DVD-RW support, ask the Author for cdrecord-ProDVD.
cdrecord-ProDVD: Free test versions and free keys for personal use are at ftp://ftp.berlios.de/pub/cdrecord/ProDVD/
Using generic SCSI-3/mmc-2 DVD-R/DVD-RW driver (mmc_dvd).
Driver flags : DVD MMC-3 SWABAUDIO BURNFREE
Supported modes: PACKET SAO


In bold, my drive supports sao. So my final command is:
sudo cdrecord-wrapper.sh -sao dev=/dev/hdb ./SUSE-9.3-Eval-DVD.iso

cdrecord-ProDVD successfully detected my drive type, media speed (2x), type (DVD-RW) and burned the iso perfectly.


kelvinq@ubuntu:~/Desktop/downloads$ sudo cdrecord-wrapper.sh -sao dev=/dev/hdb ./SUSE-9.3-Eval-DVD.iso
Cdrecord-ProDVD-Clone 2.01b31 (i686-pc-linux-gnu) Copyright (C) 1995-2004 J\uffffrg Schilling
Unlocked features: ProDVD Clone
Limited features:
This copy of cdrecord is licensed for: private/research/educational_non-commercial_use
scsidev: '/dev/hdb'
devname: '/dev/hdb'
scsibus: -2 target: -2 lun: -2
Warning: Open by 'devname' is unintentional and not supported.
Linux sg driver version: 3.5.27
Using libscg version 'schily-0.8'.
Device type : Removable CD-ROM
Version : 0
Response Format: 2
Capabilities :
Vendor_info : ‘BENQ ‘
Identifikation : ‘DVD DD DW1620 ‘
Revision : ‘B7T9′
Device seems to be: Generic mmc2 DVD-R/DVD-RW.
Using generic SCSI-3/mmc-2 DVD-R/DVD-RW driver (mmc_dvd).
Driver flags : DVD MMC-3 SWABAUDIO BURNFREE
Supported modes: PACKET SAO
Starting to write CD/DVD at speed 2 in real SAO mode for single session.
Last chance to quit, starting real write 0 seconds. Operation starts.
Turning BURN-Free off
Track 01: Total bytes read/written: 4488353792/4488353792 (2191579 sectors).

5) As you can see from above, output was pretty bare during the burning process. You might want to tweak it to your needs with cdrecord-wrapper.sh -help to see the available options.

Hope that helps.