Hi: Latest issue of Linux Format Mag gives you a DVD ISO Image for FreeBSD v8.0, which I happen to be interested in. I was also looking for an interesting use for my DVD+RW disks. I read somewhere you could "dd" straight from an ISO Image file to DVD+RW, though I couldn't remember where. Previously I thought you could put an Ext2 Filesystem on DVD+RW, which turned out to be wrong. It worked the first time I tried, but not the second. But this experiment with "dd" worked, though I'm still unsure about how to use some of the options properly. Basically (under Linux) I put: dd if=FreeBSD-8.iso of=/dev/sr1 ibs=512 obs=32768 conv=sync And my DVD+RW wrote okay, showing: 3986344+0 Records In 62286+1 Records Out Note that DVDs use 2048-byte Sectors like CDs, but they're handled in Error-Correcting Super-Blocks of 16. DVD+RW can write individual Sectors, but only by updating the entire Super-Block. My first attempt tried writing with a BlockSize of 2048, whereupon Drive /dev/sr1 sat there winding the disk back and forth, presumably writing every Super-Block 16 times over. With a total BlockSize of 32768 things went alot more smoothly. The 62286+1 Records Out are Super-Blocks with an extra one partially written. The original 3986344 Records were 512-byte Disk Blocks, which make a whole number of 2048-byte DVD Sectors, but not Super-Blocks. Then I wrote it back to a file so I could check the result using diff: dd if=/dev/sr1 of=CHECK.ISO bs=2048 count=996586 conv=notrunc Here it's okay to read the DVD as 2048-byte Sectors, because they're individually addressable. You need the count to stop the entire DVD getting imaged, all 4.7 GB, which happened the first time I tried. And of course it's the count of 2048-byte Sectors, which is 3986344/4. CHECK.ISO was identical to the original Iso Image, and I was able to use the DVD+RW to install FreeBSD v8.0. Which left me with the same Xorg Configuration problems as FreeBSD v7.2, but that's another story... Faictz Ce Que Vouldras: Frank Mitchell _______________________________________________ Staffslug mailing list Staffslug(a)staffslug.org.uk http://lists.staffslug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/staffslug

Frank Mitchell <> wrote: > Latest issue of Linux Format Mag gives you a DVD ISO Image for FreeBSD

> which I happen to be interested in. I was also looking for an interesting

> for my DVD+RW disks. I read somewhere you could "dd" straight from an ISO > Image file to DVD+RW, though I couldn't remember where. Don't know about Linux, but on FreeBSD you can use the growisofs tool from the "dvd+rw" tools collection (ports/sysutils/dvd+rw-tools). The syntax is simple: growisofs -dvd-compat -Z /dev/cd0=dvdimage.iso (/dev/cd0 is my dvd drive.) I think you can also use the burncd tool that is part of FreeBSD's base system, but I haven't tried to do that. growisofs works perfectly fine for me (it also handles double-layer media (8.5 GB) correctly, BTW). You cannot use dd for that purpose because dd doesn't have special knowledge about the recording process, e.g. it doesn't know how to determine the laser power, it doesn't know how to enable burn-proof, it doesn't know how to fixate a CD or DVD, i.e. the session won't be closed properly, and so on. That's why a special-purpose tool is better suited to handle recording of CD and DVD media. Best regards Oliver -- Oliver Fromme, secnetix GmbH & Co. KG, Marktplatz 29, 85567 Grafing b. M. Handelsregister: Registergericht Muenchen, HRA 74606, Geschäftsfuehrung: secnetix Verwaltungsgesellsch. mbH, Handelsregister: Registergericht Mün- chen, HRB 125758, Geschäftsführer: Maik Bachmann, Olaf Erb, Ralf Gebhart FreeBSD-Dienstleistungen, -Produkte und mehr: http://www.secnetix.de/bsd "The last good thing written in C was Franz Schubert's Symphony number 9." -- Erwin Dieterich _______________________________________________ SC mailing list SC(a)mailman.lug.org.uk https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/sc