This document tells you how to use the Plextor CD-RW to write CD's on the RS/GIS Unix machines.

We currently have one CD-RW. It's attached to the machine 'Mobli' in the Triangle Lab. We are going to acquire another one for the BNR Teaching lab and maybe some more as well depending on how well the current one works out.

Writing CD's is a two step process. First you use the mkisofs(1M) command to create a CD image file , then you use cdrw(1) to write the image to the CD.

1. Creating Image File
   The first step is to create an image file. This is done with the mkisofs(1M) command. First go to the directory you want to write to cd, then use the following command to write your image file. Note that in the command listed below, you will need to substitute the name of your output file and the directory you want to make an image out of.

   pfarrall@mobli pfarrall$ mkisofs -L -T -R -o /scratch/paul_image docs/         
   File docs/disk-info/vfstabs/space-vfstab is not readable (errno = 13) - ignoring
   Using CENTURIO.000;1 for  docs/centurion/centurion_last_login.txt (centurion.txt)
   Total extents actually written = 912
   Total translation table size: 5286
   Total rockridge attributes bytes: 11277
   Total directory bytes: 22528
   Path table size(bytes): 176
   Max brk space used 1a000
   912 extents written (1 Mb)
   pfarrall@mobli pfarrall$
   

   A couple of notes: The /scratch directory is provided for you to write your output images to. You should use this directory. Also the CD-ROMS in some Ultra10's and Ultra1's can have problems reading files generated with the "-R" option. See the note below for more info.
   
   
2. Writing Image File to CD.
   Now write your output file to the cdrom.

   pfarrall@mobli pfarrall$ cdrw -i /scratch/paul_image 
   Initializing device...done.
   Writing track 1...done.
   Finalizing (Can take upto 4 minutes)...done.
   pfarrall@mobli pfarrall$ rm /scratch/paul_image
   

Note about CD-ROM on Ultra10 and older Suns.

Some of the older Ultra10 workstations and other older Sun machines (Ultra2, Ultra1, etc.) have CD-ROM drives that cannot read CD's with RockRidge extensions on them. Windows machines, Linux machines and newer Sun workstations work fine. If you need to read your CD on one of these older machines , use the mkisofs(1M) command without the "-R" option:

pfarrall@mobli pfarrall$ mkisofs -L -T -o /scratch/paul_image docs/