Burn DVD RW in Ubuntu or Debian GNU/Linux

I know some of you might already familiar with k3b, gcombust or xcdroast for burning DVD in GNU/Linux. But this time i’m going to show you how to burn a DVD using command-line tool in Linux using Ubuntu or Debian GNU/Linux as reference.

Why use command-line tool to burn DVD RW ?

  • Because you might want to save space by not installing unnecessary gui application that takes up a lot of libraries.
  • You don’t have Xwindows installed
  • You just want to impress your friends (and enemies), you surely look 1337 infront of them.

What do you need ?

  • A GNU/Linux distro (preferably Debian GNU/Linux or Ubuntu)
  • dvd+rw-tools package
  • DVD Writer drive is highly recommended though not required
  • Some positive attitude

Getting the required tools to burn DVD

Install dvd+rw-tools. As root (in Debian or Ubuntu) execute this command,

#apt-get install dvd+rw-tools

Initialise the DVD+RW

Do this only when you want to clear out all contents.

#dvd+rw-format /dev/scd1

Copy some files/director from local directory to DVD RW

#growisofs -Z /dev/scd1 -R -J /home/mypapit/somestuffs

Write some more stuff to an initialized DVD+RW

#growisofs -M /dev/scd1 -R -J /home/mypapit/books

There you go, how to burn DVD RW under GNU/Linux.

Final question, I don’t run Linux. What are my options?

dvd+rw-tools is also available in OpenBSD/NetBSD and FreeBSD from port contributed by Matthew Dillon.

[Source]

7 Replies to “Burn DVD RW in Ubuntu or Debian GNU/Linux”

  1. Thanks for the clues on the dvd-rw. What’s more it worked :-)

    I just burnt a dvd-rw with the default burner that comes with Ubuntu-9.04 and it ‘finalized’ it, no obvious options.

    Any way, all back to square one, the dvd is read writing happily

  2. Thanks this seems to work well under ubuntu 6.10. Not sure what I was doing wrong with dvdrecord…

Comments are closed.