Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

[Smithy]

I find myself using Puppy more often now over Windows, now I know a bit more about what the hell is going on, but there are a few caveats, and one of them is discs that have been done in UDF.

P Burn just insists it is a blank disc in there.
I really like the P Burn prog, it has never done a bad burn yet, and Puppy feels so solid, no stuff kicking in in the background, it would be nice if it could do UDF (R/W+DL as well, and I think the ability to read and write is still in recent kernels?

I always found multisession to be a bit convoluted, whereas udf, though dodgy sometimes, was always a good choice for laying off mixes, remixes and re remixes etc.

Possibly there is not much interest in having it or using it in Puppy?

[musher0]

Hello, Smithy.

I am no great specialist of UDF, but I believe it is rather unusual to use the format under Linux. You might want to see here as a starting point:

http://www.info.com/searchw?qkw=udf+linux&qcat=web&q=udf+linux&qhqn=udf+linux&KW=udf+linux

I have also read (a few years back) that Linux more or less skipped using UDF DVD's in favor of USB thumb drives.

Best of luck.

[Flash]

UDF is in the kernel but more has to be done before you can use it. Forum member Ted Dog tried a few years ago but I don't think he got very far. Others have tried as well. As far as I know, no one has made packet writing work in Puppy.

[jamesbond]

UDF can be used with or without packet-writing.

1. Most DVD that has UDF also has ISO filesystem on it, using the so-called ISO/UDF bridge. Thus the DVD can be read as if it is a regular ISO disc.

2. If all you want is to be able to read UDF disc, just do "modprobe udf" from the command line and you're good to go.

3. Without packet-writing, UDF is just another read-only filesystem. You need to pre-master it just like you pre-master ISO filesystem using mkisofs - use mkudffs & loop device instead. But you can also easily put any filesystem to a DVD ( not only ISO or UDF) e.g. ext2, ext3, ntfs ... UDF is not special here.

4. As far as I know, you cannot use multi-session with UDF. Once you write an UDF filesystem to a DVD - that's it; that's the end of the line. No further changes (unless you enable packet-writing, see below).

5. With packet writing, assuming DVD+RW media, UDF is a writable filesystem *but it has to be a pure UDF disc without ISO/UDF bridge*. You can do mkudffs straight to the device without having to pre-master it. But as said above, you can easily use ext2, ext3 ...

6. Note: Packet-writing is slow. Note again: Packet-writing is very slow. Last reminder: Packet-writing is extremely slow. It is a lot faster to do bulk writes (e.g. using growisofs).

7. It is not possible to boot from pure UDF disc. If you know how to do this, even if it's a trick, I'm interested to hear that.

I was playing with packet-writing and was thinking to support UDF/packet-writing in Fatdog despite its slowness, but point 7 is the killer.

[zigbert]

Jamesbond
Interesting reading, thank you. I have to admit that my UDF-knowledge is close to none.

Pburn supports writing UDF, but the standard seems to be unsharp, since Linux-UDF can't be read by Windows. I also thought that Linux wouldn't read Windows-UDF, but you mention 'modprobe udf'.... Will this work for a disc written in Windows? if so, why isn't this setup by default during boot?


Sigmund

[jamesbond]

[Smithy]

Thanks for all the info and tips!

Yes James Bond, UDF is a bit slow, but I am usually only laying off a couple of hundred megs at a time.

I gave it a try with a UDF disc:

sh-4.1# modprobe udf
sh-4.1# mount -t udf /dev/sr0 /mnt/cdrom
mount: block device /dev/sr0 is write-protected, mounting read-only
mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sr0,
missing codepage or other error
In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try
dmesg | tail or so

Well maybe it is time to lay off to a different format.
Is multisession reliable in Puppy?

I usually do a song/track and then write to udf dvd/cd. Then maybe a month or so later I might come back to a track or song and decide to do a jazz version or a dance version.
Normally I would just stick the udf in and make a new folder within the track folder.

If I can achieve the same thing with Pburn in a multisession way, that would do!

[Flash]

Multisession seems to be utterly reliable. I've been running Puppy from a multisession CD or DVD for over 5 years. I turn off the computer every night and reboot from the DVD every morning. I can't remember a boot problem that had anything to do with multisession.

See here for a discussion about burning a separate session on a multisession DVD.

Oh, and could you please change your avatar? The movement is extremely distracting. Maybe have it cycle once when it comes into view, then stop?

[jamesbond]

This works for Windows XP and Windows 7, I tested with dvd+rw. With other forms of media your result may vary.

[Smithy]

There's two words in your post Flash that are most appealing: Utterly and Reliable

Just to clarify, the multisession burns I want to do are nothing to do with booting Puppy up, but I guess you are writing (and rewriting/ updating your save file to dvd)?
I love the versatility of Puppy Linux.

I am just backing up (archiving) recorded data, wavs, Reaper, Podium setups Cover Designs and the like, all pertaining to the same project so I don't have to rummage through loads of discs, and then I am appending data when doing remixes, maybe a month later to the same DVD disc.

James Bond, I have been using Sonic Direct Letter Access for a very long time under Windows usually udf 1.02 or 1.05. I used Roxio, but it buggered up a lot more than Veritas/Sonic programme.
Burn time for 200meg was/ is about 3 minutes or so. Time to make a cup of tea after a session.

I've had to do a few "emergency" recoveries from dual layer discs in my time, usually due to impatience, the wind blowing the wrong way or some stupid programme trying to kick in (I think, but never really got to the bottom of it). People always warned me about packet writing, but on the whole, it did the job, and when I see a button on an airplane that says "Do not press" I just can't help pressing it.

That's some very clever stuff you are doing there with no packet writing driver involved!

From what I remember about Multisession burning, it drags the last session up and links it to your new session, so that you can see it when you next load the disc, I think it needed to use up some of the megs on the disc to do this, fair enough, but I used to run out of storage space on the cd occasionally, now we are on dvd this 'aint a problem...especially dual layer.

I tried slotting in a hard disk(s) to archive, but then it adds more noise (I run a Zalman Quiet PC 'cos I record vocalists and acoustic stuff).

I will try some multisession tests with the lovely P Burn and see how it holds up!

[Flash]

Read the thread I linked to above. It has links to more threads that I think you'll find useful.

[jamesbond]

[01micko]

[8-bit]

I downloaded a consumer preview of windows 8.
The info for it said it would wipe out any existing OS as part of the installation and the original OS and all user files would be lost.
But anyway, clicking on the ISO file opens a ISO 9660 part that has one text file that more or less says UDF support is needed to view the contents of the DVD.

I do not know if Puppy has any command line options to mount that ISO in UDF file system format. I tried using pmount with the file and that just brought up the pmount window.
Suggestions?

[zigbert]