SUMMARY: CD-R Software and Hardware on Solaris 2.5

From: John Stoffel (jfs@fluent.com)
Date: Mon Jun 24 1996 - 09:25:42 CDT


Managers,

Sorry this summary took so long to generate. I got some very good
information and comments from people out there on which CD-R software
and hardware they've been using and problems they've had with various
places.

At this time, we're probably going to go with the Young Minds
software/hardware solution with a Yamaha 4X recorder because of the
good comments YMI has gotten, and because we want to keep the system
Unix based and very reliable for burning good discs.

We aren't concerned with Multisession or Multimedia discs at this
time, just pure software distribution in ISO9660 format with Rock
Ridge extenstions. Using a PC as the base would mean having to
support a PC, which I don't want to have to do if I can help it.

Thanks to all who replied.

John

           John Stoffel - Unix Systems Administrator - Fluent, Inc.
          jfs@fluent.com - http://www.fluent.com - 603-643-2600 x341
                             Kill your Television

------- start of digest (12 messages) (RFC 934 encapsulation) -------
From: poffen@San-Jose.ate.slb.com (Russ Poffenberger)
To: jfs@fluent.com
Subject: Re: CD-R Software and Hardware on Solaris 2.5
Date: Thu, 6 Jun 1996 13:35:20 -0700 (PDT)
Message-Id: <9606062035.AA11803@San-Jose.ate.slb.com>

John Stoffel <jfs@fluent.com> wrote:
>
> Hi Managers,
>
> We're a small software house looking to start cutting our own CD-R
> disks for software distribution to our clients. We support all the
> major Unix vendors (Sun, HP, SGI, DEC, IBM, Cray, Convex, etc) so
> we're looking for a system that writes ISO9660 format CDs with the
> Rock Ridge extensions. Our central repository for our software
> distribution is on an NFS server and to keep network traffic down we'd
> like to hang the CD-R off this box, while at the same time not loading
> it down totally.
>
> I've looked at Young Minds (www.ymi.com) and like the fact that they
> have a dedicated hardware box to do the writes to CD-R from, so in
> case the host systems gets bogged down, the disc isn't toasted.
>
> Another vendor we're looking at is Creative Digital Research
> (www.cdr1.com) who only has software that drives the CD-R writer
> directly. You can also download a demo version of their software to
> look at. I'm not too impressed with it at first glance, but maybe the
> command line interface offers more options for configuring and writing
> discs.
>
> I've called dataDisc (800-328-2347) and asked for info on their
> software, but I haven't gotten a call back yet.
>
> At this point I'm leaning towards Young Minds with the Yamaha 4X CD-R
> writer because of the speed and robustness of the writing process. I
> haven't actually gotten my hands on the software to test it out.
>
> Does anyone out there have any comments or suggestion for other
> vendors of software and hardware we should look at? I'm also not
> totally opposed to freeware, but we would really like an out of the
> box solution so we can scream at someone else if there is a problem.

We have had a YM system for a couple years, with the Philips 2x
recorder, and Kodak autoloader.

It has worked very well for us. The Authoring software has allowed us
to do all we want, create ISO with RR CD's, and also allows us to turn
off name checking because I wanted to make a CD of some collected
Windows 95 stuff, but it had some non ISO filenames (that we couldn't
change), and we were still able to make a CD that worked.

- --
Russ Poffenberger Engineering Specialist
Schlumberger Technologies ATE DOMAIN: poffen@San-Jose.ate.slb.com
1601 Technology Drive CIS: 72401,276
San Jose, Ca. 95110 Voice: (408)437-5254 FAX: (408)437-5246

------------------------------
From: poffen@San-Jose.ate.slb.com (Russ Poffenberger)
To: jfs@fluent.com
Subject: Re[2]: CD-R Software and Hardware on Solaris 2.5
Date: Thu, 6 Jun 1996 14:00:46 -0700 (PDT)
Message-Id: <9606062100.AA12259@San-Jose.ate.slb.com>

John Stoffel <jfs@fluent.com> wrote:
>
> Russ,
>
> Thanks for your comments. Some other questions, have you had any
> problems reading the discs you've cut on other systems? Do you buy
> only the recommended Philips CD-R discs or do you get generic ones and
> use them? Which version of the YM software are you using and how are
> they for customer support?

We have used several different brands of discs without problem. I have
not found any system having difficulty reading them either. Our Sun's
read them, my Toshiba at home (3701) reads it, I had a Texel (now
Plextor) before that, and it worked fine also.

We currently use version 1.20. We only had to call support once,
turned out it was our fault, we were trying to put 600Mb on a 500Mb
disc:-(

> Do you have to use the GUI to cut discs or can you write scripts to
> automate the process? We're also thinking of having to cut multiple
> discs at a time, so not having to re-down load the software to the YM
> hardware would be a plus for us.

You don't have to use the GUI at all. They have a command line
interface for creating the image. You don't need the autoloader to cut
multiple disks either, once the image is downloaded into the YM box
(just a PC with a big disk internally really), you can cut as many
disks as you want from it, even by inserting the blanks manually into
the recorder. You can also create an image to a disk file, rather than
download to the box, so all you need to do is "dd" the image to the
box later. You can also raw "dd" existing CD's to make copies (but not
CDDA).

Good luck!
Russ

------------------------------
From: Martin Espinoza <drink@sei.com>
Sender: drink@sei.com
To: John Stoffel <jfs@fluent.com>
Subject: Re: CD-R Software and Hardware on Solaris 2.5
Date: Thu, 06 Jun 1996 13:52:02 -0700

[ original message edited out ]

Apparently, there are some tools for linux that you might like.
One of them is the ability to run a FILE as if it were a disk,
with any fstype you like - So you can test your CDROM before
ever making it into a cdrom, and then just write it out to the
CD with "dd".

I don't know enough about them.

I suggest you slum around on the linux newsgroups, or just go
and ask on IRC/efnet Channel #linux.

------------------------------
From: Stuart McRobert <sm@doc.ic.ac.uk>
To: John Stoffel <jfs@fluent.com>
Subject: Re: CD-R Software and Hardware on Solaris 2.5
Date: Thu, 6 Jun 1996 22:06:41 +0100

Hi,

I know you were asking about alternatives, but just a quick note to
say a Young Minds system I've had for a few years now has been very
successful, an early problem was helpfully resolved, and its still
going strong, obviously I'm using older hardware and a sunos base, but
it works well.

I've probably an old version of their software, but being able to
master a CD image, then mount that *image* back from their
controller's disk drive as if it were a real CD onto the sun to check
it, is a very handy feature to look for.

Cheers

        Stuart

------------------------------
From: bbice@persistence.com (Brent Bice)
To: jfs@fluent.com
Subject: Re: CD-R Software and Hardware on Solaris 2.5
Date: Thu, 6 Jun 1996 14:49:38 -0700

> We're a small software house looking to start cutting our own CD-R
> disks for software distribution to our clients. We support all the
> major Unix vendors (Sun, HP, SGI, DEC, IBM, Cray, Convex, etc) so
> we're looking for a system that writes ISO9660 format CDs with the
> Rock Ridge extensions. Our central repository for our software
> distribution is on an NFS server and to keep network traffic down we'd
> like to hang the CD-R off this box, while at the same time not loading
> it down totally.

Had the same problem/s recently. Since we also support NT/95
platforms and have several of these handy, I opted for getting a
package for the PC platform. The leading packages on the PCs seem to
be at least as robust and full-featured, more reliable, and plenty
cheaper than for UNIX.

   We don't have the hardware in house yet, let alone setup/tested,
but we decided to just get another hard disk for one of the PCs and
dedicate it to burning CD's to avoid any of the problems with not
supplying data to the drive fast enough.

> At this point I'm leaning towards Young Minds with the Yamaha 4X CD-R
> writer because of the speed and robustness of the writing process. I
> haven't actually gotten my hands on the software to test it out.

   'Don't know too much about the Young Minds stuff -- I've heard that
they're software isn't the greatest. But I've heard lots of good
things about the Yamaha 4X CD's. The only drawback I'd heard was that
there was more than one version of the firmware, the latest was a big
improvement (fixed some bugs of some sort) and that the drive had to
be sent back to the factory to get the latest revs of firmware -- not
field upgradeable.

> Does anyone out there have any comments or suggestion for other
> vendors of software and hardware we should look at?
>
   Take a look at http://www.cd-info.com/. There's lots of good info
there. Also, even more highly recommended, is the
comp.publish.cdrom.hardware and comp.publish.cdrom.software news
groups. The FAQ on both was *very* informative! (sorry, I don't have
it saved anywhere)

------------------------------
From: "Boyd C. Fletcher (sysadmin)" <bcf@jtasc.acom.mil>
To: John Stoffel <jfs@fluent.com>
Subject: Re: CD-R Software and Hardware on Solaris 2.5
Date: Thu, 6 Jun 1996 19:22:46 -0400 (EDT)
Message-Id: <Pine.SOL.3.91.960606191509.2389B-100000@jtasc.acom.mil>

HP makes a CDR drive called SureStore CD Writer 4020i.

http://www-dmo.external.hp.com:80/cdwriter/main.html

We use it here in our PCs and it works great!

You should buy a Pentium, buy some fast big disks. Load your s/w to
press from over the network. Disconnect the PC from network. then
press the CDs. any interruptions or systems glitches and you can kiss
your cd goodbye.

------------------------------
From: Toby Darling <tobyd@sco.COM>
To: John Stoffel <jfs@fluent.com>
Subject: Re: CD-R Software and Hardware on Solaris 2.5
Date: Fri, 07 Jun 1996 08:49:35 +0100
Message-Id: <31B7DF0F.7DF5@sco.com>

Hi John

Sorry if this is slight;y irrelevant ... I've been burning CDs off an
NT box for about three months now. Its our DHCP, WINS and print server
for the office, the scary bit is how litle it takes to get a 'buffer
underrun' and trash the CD. If you have the cash, I'd suggest a
dedicated box, you can build an ISO image locally, and keep burning
from that ... only one hit on the network.

Have a look at news: comp.publish.cdrom.hardware comp.publish.cdrom.software
Mentions of GEAR software appear quite regularly.

Hope this helps

Cheers
Toby
- --
- ---------------------------------------------------------------------
Toby Darling - Software Quality Engineer | A truly great wine should
SCO Client Integration Division | not leave you with a foam
Vision Park Phone: 01223 518039 | moustache that can only be
Histon Phax : 01223 518001 | removed with turps. - DL
Cambridge Email: tobyd@sco.com |
       http://www.vision.sco.com | My signature, my opinions.

------------------------------
From: sschorz@cambric.com (Sherman Schorzman)
To: John Stoffel <jfs@fluent.com>
Subject: Re: CD-R Software and Hardware on Solaris 2.5
Date: Fri, 7 Jun 1996 11:11:38 -0600
Message-Id: <v02130501adddbde440e4@[192.168.20.242]>

We are using the CD Studio from Young Minds. We choose the 4X
writter. We have not had one failed CD due to hardware or software
failure. A few due to operator error.

Sherman Schorzman internet: sschorz.cambric.com
Cambric Graphics Inc. vmail: (801) 298-6873
110 West Business Park Drive voice: (801) 571-8100
Draper, UT. 84020 fax: (801) 571-8464

------------------------------
From: bpatel@pniltd.com (Bhadresh Patel)
To: jfs@fluent.com
Cc: bpatel@pniltd.com (Bhadresh Patel)
Subject: Re: CD-R Software and Hardware on Solaris 2.5
Date: Fri, 7 Jun 1996 14:03:16 -0400 (EDT)
Message-Id: <9606071803.AA20355@pniltd.com>

> I've looked at Young Minds (www.ymi.com) and like the fact that they
> have a dedicated hardware box to do the writes to CD-R from, so in
> case the host systems gets bogged down, the disc isn't toasted.

I have used this on a SunOS 4.1.3 machine and it worked well. The
reason we stopped using it was that the software did not (I don't know
if it does now) support the creation of mulit-session CD-ROMs. We
ended up getting a Mac based CD-R software package. So far it is
working out great. BTW - we still have the Young Minds h/w
available. We paid a lot of $$ to get it and now it is not used at
all. If you are interested in buying this from us, drop me a note and
we can discuss prices.

> Another vendor we're looking at is Creative Digital Research
> (www.cdr1.com) who only has software that drives the CD-R writer
> directly. You can also download a demo version of their software to
> look at. I'm not too impressed with it at first glance, but maybe the
> command line interface offers more options for configuring and writing
> discs.

I have evaluated their PC based product but not the Unix product. It
was fair.

> I've called dataDisc (800-328-2347) and asked for info on their
> software, but I haven't gotten a call back yet.
>
> Does anyone out there have any comments or suggestion for other
> vendors of software and hardware we should look at? I'm also not
> totally opposed to freeware, but we would really like an out of the
> box solution so we can scream at someone else if there is a problem.

Have you considered a PC or Mac based solution ? If cost is one of
your factors, then this would be considerably cheaper than a Unix
solution.

Bhadresh Patel email: bpatel@pniltd.com
PNI
Arlington, VA

------------------------------
From: "Matt Hill" <MHILL@graver.com>
To: jfs@fluent.com
Cc: pecca@graver.com
Subject: Re: CD-R Software and Hardware on Solaris 2.5
Date: Fri, 7 Jun 1996 16:26:35 EST
Message-Id: <17EFB2E2326@mailhost.graver.com>

hi. we here use CDR's software under SunOS 4.1.3 with a Yamaha
cd-writer. i would like to advise you to avoid these people and their
products if you can ... we have had some bad experiences with them.
tech support is generally slow, and they often don't know what you're
talking about. they insist you use e-mail for tech support... the
software itself (at least the version we have) is buggy and the
interface is somewhat kludgy. you have to marry it to the hardware
(hostid) of the machine you first install it to and can never move the
writer. and now we are upgrading the machine to SunOS 5.5 and they
are giving us a hard time about it, claiming that it is a completely
different platform and we have to buy an entirely new version of the
software.

when the software works, it does its job well. but the documentation
is lacking, and it's often hard to figure out exactly what you're
supposed to do to get the stuff to do what you want. it's not all
that intuitive. if you can, i would advise you to go with another
vendor. we, however, are somewhat stuck at this point. ;-(

- --
Matthew J. Hill
hill@graver.com

------------------------------
From: hagberg@ece.arizona.edu (D. J. Hagberg)
To: jfs@fluent.com (John Stoffel)
Subject: Re: CD-R Software and Hardware on Solaris 2.5
Date: Mon, 10 Jun 1996 16:07:59 -0700
Message-Id: <9606102307.AA25687@ece.arizona.edu>

We use the Yamaha 4x CD-Rom writer and the Creative Digital CD-R software.
Pleased with the Yamaha unit, though it can only press at 2x (may be
the hardware we're running it on -- overloaded Sparc 2 NFS server).
Moderately underwhelmed by the CD-R software, though we have not
had any media problems due to it. Dislike their GUI interface and
methods for file/directory specification _immensely_. But it's all
we have...

I noticed you didn't mention the "Gear" software. That's produced by a c
company in Germany, I think, and is supposed to be pretty good.

                        -=- D. J.
                        -=- dhagberg@gds.com

------- end -------



This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.2 : Fri Sep 28 2001 - 23:11:02 CDT