Re: USB CD-RW Drive

[Kalum / Grendel <kalum delrom ro>]

On Tue, 1 Oct 2002,  Thomas Dodd commented thusly,

> peter hachmeister cunamutual com wrote:
> > The reason I'd like to go with a USB CR/RW is that I want the flexibility
> > to move the to/drive from various machines.
>
> That's the same reason I got mine. To use at home and work, at the time
> it was cheaper than 2 drives. Not the case now, but it's handy when
> helping people out. I can take it and a runtime cd, boot the CD, and
> backup data to a CDRW.

Well all I can say is enjoy writing at a max of 4 speed ( 20 minutes for a
cd, 20 minutes wondering whether the fscking power wouild go off and you
loose a cd etc) and wait til usb2 comes to give you the faster speeds.

> > Please consider buying a ide cd-writer like asus, which is the best brand
> > IMHO. USB under linux is just such a pain in the ass for newbies, and
> > besides usb is so slow, so please see if you can trade in your usb cd
> > writer and get a good IDE writer, I recommend the asus brands for there
>
> Except the IDE drive is not portable.

Well its the speed that matters, newer IDE ones can burn at bnearly 40
speed! wooooow!

> >
> > I would suggest that you have a look at a lot of documents on how to
> > configure USB for linux, basically linux USB support is terrible, if you
>
> Compared to what? Windows crashing when you plug a device in?
> Or telling you that the driver isn't recommended/signed?

Well surprisingly I havent had windoze 98 (5 years old) crash on me during
this year not once.

Its basically this, the native (out of the box OS) is stable, it becomes
unstable as you install various programs which install out of data DLL's
etc etc. I have alot of programs, but I am carefull when I install old
programs.


Anyway assume it crashes, well I would prefer a random crash in once a few
days rather than having to

1. Read the usb docs to find that I have to confiogure hotplug, compile a
kernel driver, add various texts to a usb file, type modplug scanner etc,
in order to get my scanner to work.

Its really horrible for digital cameras, I prefer just booting to windoze
and downloading my pics from it, rather than reading the docs for linux on
howto configure usb etc.

> > have a usb device and if it works automatically then you are ok, otherwise
> > it means tinkering with various settings hotplug modules etc etc, reading
> > the docs etc, its terrible.
>
> You seam to have had a bad experience. My experiences aren't nearly
> as bad. Now windoze is the opposite. Nothing but bad experiences there.
> mine and others I know who ask for help.

Well thomas I love linux, but I am also the first to admit that getting
USB to work under linux just sux. If I give you a camera and ask you to
get a pic out of it, well you have to make sure that usb supports it or
else you have to configure it yourself (a PITA), then you have to read the
gphoto docs on how to run a camera script whcih will create the various
/dev/xxxx entries, the you have to configure gphoto to use that /dev/xxx
entry etc etc, you see what a pain it is.


Best Wishes,
Grendel


-- 
.---------------------.---------------------.----{)--.
| /"__ ._ _  _  _| _ |`-. kalum delrom ro .-'(]__/|| |
| \__/ | (-'| |(_|(-'l_ `-===============-' [_]  .-: |
`--------------------------------------------/|\/| |-'

Prozilla: all your files are belong to us.