"Linux Gazette...making Linux just a little more fun!"

The Answer Guy

By James T. Dennis, answerguy@ssc.com
Starshine Technical Services, http://www.starshine.org/

"DAO" (Disk at Once) CDR?

Stump me!

From Mark Heath on 25 Jun 1998

Hi there,

I've been searching high and low for DAO (disk at once) CDR recording software for linux. Does any exist, Commercial or otherwise?

I've email Jeff Arnold about a Linux port and he bluntly refused.

I've email'd HyCD who have a tool that appeared to support DAO and claimed UNIX support. But their software didn't support DAO and they weren't interested in a Linux port. I've informed them of this hole in the Linux software market.

The closest thing that appears to be available is that Joerg Schilling's cdrecord supports DAO MMC-3 (err i think that is the spec) Of course my CDR (HP 4020i) isn't MMC compatible.

I've had a look at writing my own but it appears that every CDR has a different command set to write in DAO mode. I think is was a little out of my depth, since I couldn't even get the CDR to read raw sectors.

So your help would be much appreciated. Thanks.
Mark.

Well, you have me stumped.

I don't know anything about the difference between DAO and other forms of CDR recording. Normally, I'd spend an hour or two hunting around on Alta Vista, Yahoo!, Savvy Search, DejaNews, etc and pulling out more of my hair to find out. However, I have a book to write and a wife to feed, and it is just too close to my deadline for me to wait until tomorrow.

So, what is DAO and why would you need it? What is the difference between cdrecord and cdwrite (the one I use with my Ricoh CDR)? Have you tried them both? What is MMC? Who is Jeff Arnold? Who are HyCD and should we care enough to start another Linux grassroots "petition-the-vendor" campaign or should we just write more code to "do-it-ourselves"?

I'll publish this one --- and let you and the rest of my readership nail me with the answers. (Naturally I'll bounce you copies of the other responses as they trickle in).

Copyright © 1998, James T. Dennis
Published in Linux Gazette Issue 30 July 1998

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