WODIM refused to blank CD-RW media
Affects | Status | Importance | Assigned to | Milestone | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
cdrkit (Ubuntu) |
Expired
|
Undecided
|
Unassigned |
Bug Description
What happened: WODIM refused to blank CD-RW media UNTIL i did so with official cdrtools from Schily.
What I expected to happen: I expected WODIM to blank and write my CD-RW's. Silly me.
How to repeat: Not sure. Since once using the offical cdrtools package, my problem seems to have vanished. To be honest though, I had some major issues trying to burn a CD-R the other day, and made a rather impressive selection of coasters. THANKS, WODIM.
The long story:
I've been reading up on the debate between Schily and the Debian dev team -- I have to admit I was biased from the start, thinking that Schily was just pompous twit. My most sincere apologies to Mr Schily. WODIM, installed in Intrepid, refused to blank CD-RW media, alternately claiming that the device was in use and that it was unable to open the scsi bus. The device WASN'T in use (DEFINITELY NOT mounted, or anything else running against it). Rebooting (hey, it fixes Windows ;p ) didn't help -- the problem persisted. Note that I also tried cdrskin, which is supposed to be a thin wrapper aroung libburn, with the same results -- the device was permanently "locked". Note that this particular machine has been upgraded (not reloaded) at least 3 times (7.10-8.04-8.10), that I can remember. Perhaps more. And it's only been in 8.10 where this has become an issue.
I downloaded Schily's 2.01.01a55 version of cdrecord, compile and installed. K3b (yes, I use GNOME, but there is no burning GUI that I have ever used (*nix or win32) which can compete with k3b, except perhaps older versions of Nero (<6), before the dev team hired a pack of turd-throwing, crack-smoking chimps to redesign what WAS a clear, usable interface) picked it up without configuration (huzzah!), and I could once again blank and write CD-RW media WITHOUT ISSUE. Oddly enough, after having dispelled the bad juju, wodim decided to co-operate, and will now blank and write CD-RW media. Not good enough for me -- I'm leaving my Schily tools as the default in k3b.
Ubuntu already breaks the "total freedom" concept of Debian by providing items such as the NVIDIA/ATI binary blobs and official Firefox artwork (to name just the most commonly-known culprits). I have no problem with this as it means that the average Joe user can get a working Linux machine without having to rise to the status of 1337 h4x0r; this is good for Linux and the user in general. My question then, is why are we still subscribing to the broken wodim? I'm all for the Free alternative, but I rather subscribe to Linus' approach: "free" or not, the BEST solution always wins. And it's not like Schily's cdrtools isn't actually free -- it's just not GPL, but I have other licenses which live side-by-side on my system (MPL, GPL, BSD, to name just a few). I just don't get how this made it past QA (and I have a very high opinion of Ubuntu QA). For a non-tech user out there, this would have been a show-stopper. A "switch back to that crappy Other OS" moment.
Requested info:
output from 'lsb_release -rd'
Description: Ubuntu 8.10
Release: 8.10
Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. Unfortunately, we can't fix it because your description didn't include enough information. You may find it helpful to read "How to report bugs effectively" http:// www.chiark. greenend. org.uk/ ~sgtatham/ bugs.html.
If you ever can reproduce this bug we'd be grateful if you would call wodim with the options '-dd -V ' and attach the complete output here.
This is not the right place to discuss the wodim vs. cdrecord issue. It has discussed a lot in various places in the past; if you still feel the need for discussion you can reach the developers in the ubuntu- devel-discuss mailing list https:/ /lists. ubuntu. com/mailman/ listinfo/ Ubuntu- devel-discuss
To maintain a respectful atmosphere, please follow the code of conduct - http:// www.ubuntu. com/community/ conduct/ .