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Writing CDs with KOnCD

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PCQ Bureau
New Update

KOnCD is a free Linux utility for writing CDs. If you’re familiar with Nero, you’ll find KonCD easy to use. We’ve given the software on this month’s PCQEssential CD under the Linux section. 

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In this article, we’ll talk about how to install the software and use it for writing different types of CDs. We’ll also talk about some general issues people face when writing CDs in Linux. 

The most common problem with CD writing in Linux is getting Linux to recognize your CD-Writer in the first place. Linux usually defaults to recognizing it as an ordinary CD-drive. So, when using any CD-writing software, including KOnCD, Linux doesn’t recognize the writer and gives a “no SCSI device found” error message. This problem doesn’t occur if you have connected the CD-Writer to the machine first and then installed Linux on the system. Linux recognizes the writer in this case. If you have installed Linux with an ordinary CD-ROM drive plugged in, then it will recognize all further drives as read-only drives even if they’re CD-Writers. To solve this problem, you have to emulate the CD-Writer as a SCSI device. During installation, Linux automatically emulates the drive. As it wouldn’t make any sense to reinstall Linux just to recognize a CD-Writer, here’s how to emulate it as a SCSI drive. 

First, you have to find the device id where your Cdwriter is working. For this, go to the /dev directory and run the following command.

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#cd /dev



#ls -l cdrom

This will give an output resembling the following.

cdrom ––> /dev/hdx 

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Here, x can be anything, such as a, b, c or d, and is the device in which your CD-Writer is working. To emulate this device as a SCSI device, do the following.

#cd /boot/grub



#vi grub.conf

This will open the configuration file for Grub and will look something like this.

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default=0



timeout=10


splashimage=(hd0,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz


title PCQLinux (2.4.18-24.8.0)


root (hd0,0)


kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.18-24.8.0 ro root=LABEL=/ 


initrd /initrd-2.4.18-24.8.0.img




Add the line ‘hdx=ide-scsi’ just after the ‘LABEL=/’ word. Here, replace hdx with the appropriate device name you noted. The full line should look something like this






kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.18-24.8.0 ro root=LABEL=/
hdx=ide-scsi

Restart your machine and your CDWriter should get recognized as a CD-Writer only, and will be ready to wok with

KOnCD. 

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To install KonCD, copy the KOnCD-3.0.3-4.i386.rpm from the PCQuest EssentialCD to your home directory and run the following command.

# rpm -ivh koncd-3.0.3-4.i386.rpm

This will install the package to your machine. To run KOnCD, go to Start>Extra>System Tools>KonCD. This will pop up a screen from where you can select your reading and writing device. To do this, go to the setup menu and select KOnCD. Next, go to the Device tab and select your appropriate device. You can also set the users who will be able to use this software from the Users tab. 

To start burning CDs, go to the first form and select what type of CD you want to write. You will get the options of (Copy CD, Data CD, Audio CD, and Rip CD). You can select any one of them as your need. For example, to burn a simple data CD, choose Data CD from the first menu. After this, another window pops up where you define the remaining settings. It’s pretty straightforward. The first tab in the window lets you add all the files and directories you want to burn. After you’ve selected all the files, look for the Options box, and click on the checkboxes next to Create CD-Image and Write CD. Then, just insert a blank CDR media into the drive and click on the Start button. After it’s burned the CD, you’ll get a complete log of process the software followed while burning, including error messages, if any. There are other options on this interface that let you create multi-session CDs, change the burning speeds, etc. You can also write ISO image files. 

Anindya Roy

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