What planet were you on for the last 10 years?What you say above is even more amazing. You are saying that you can write to a CD-RW in linux using one of the cd writing programs and somehow erase what you have written and use it now as a CD-RW cd writing and reading to it. How exactly do you remove what you have written the first time?
Look here for a good difference between them: http://www.itsu.vt.edu/Workshops/CDBurning/HTML/cdrrw.htm
Jesss.... James Kosin