Easy CD burning on Linux with K3b
Last week I needed to burn a couple of CDs - an activity which I haven’t done too much of. My SUSE 9.3 install, running KDE gave me a couple of options under Multimedia apps for CD/DVD burning: Gnome CD/DVD Creator and K3b. Since I’m more of a KDE person, I tried out K3b.
According to the K3b website, “K3b - The CD/DVD Kreator for Linux - optimized for KDE, was created to be a feature rich and easy to handle CD burning application.” Although I didn’t explore the application in any real detail, it did what I needed to do (which was to burn an ISO), fairly easily. I’m posting this in the hope, that it could be a useful starting point for someone…
Another thing: the on-screen messages are crisp and clear, and for the technically inclined a detailed log of what happened beneath the hood is available. This easy availability of technical take-away-information is a common trait of open source software. (Of course the source is available… I know, I know; but not everybody may want to wade though the code of every open-source app they try, just to get a working overview ;)) On the other hand, going through the detailed activity log, does gives one an idea and feel for the burning process in general and the working of the application in particular. Pretty valuable in my opinion.
Finally, the success alert, in the sound of a victory bugle (I think), startled and then amused me. These guys have a sense of humor. If you don’t want to drop your cup of coffee, make sure the speaker volume is not turned up too high… ;)