While the CD Creator application described above is very convenient and easy to use, its functionality is mainly limited to the copying of files/folders to a CD-R(W). A more versatile CD burning application is GnomeToaster. To start it select,
Main Menu --> System Tools --> More System Tools --> CD Writer
Click to view screen shot Fig 4.4 GnomeToaster
Top Window - Data Sources
The GnomeToaster window has 2 main window sections. The top window shows a list of data sources - Unix Tree, Internal Structure and CDROM drives. The data sources are the sources for the data to be copied and burned into the CD-R(W).
The Unix Tree represents the file system on the computer. Clicking on the + icon of the tree will expand it to display the file system, i.e. the hierarchical tree structure comprising files and directories (folders). Clicking on a directory will cause the files in the directory to be displayed on the right panel of the top window.
Clicking on CDROM drives will expand into a listing of the CD-ROM drives present in the system and clicking on one of the drives will display the tracks in it on the right panel.
Note:
If you have a CD-ROM drive and it is not displayed on the GnomeToaster CDROM drives listing, you may have to physically enter your CD-ROM drive device information into the GnomeToaster configuration setup so that the application can recognize it. To perform this, click on the Preferences button at the top and select “CDROM and Recorder Setup”. Click on the Add button at the bottom to display the setup window. Enter the CD-ROM drive data for your system. For the model and manufacturer, you can enter the information marked on your CD-ROM drive or if you do not know what they are, you can just enter any meaningful text description. The Device File entry will probably be “/dev/cdrom” while the Mountpoint entry is usually “/mnt/cdrom”. For the Scsi ID use the default value of “0,0”. Ensure that the boxes entitled “This Drive is a CD writer” and “Use SCSI Interface for DAE” are not marked. Click on OK to apply the settings and click on OK again to exit the “CDROM and Recorder Setup” window.
Click to view screen shot Fig 4.5 GnomeToaster CDROM and Recorder Setup
The CD-ROM drive should now be visible in the CDROM drives tree listing panel. You can now use it as a source of data for burning.
Clicking on Internal Structures will display the "GnomeToaster-Filesystem" on the right panel.
Bottom Window
Writing data to the CD-R(W) involves selecting the data from the data sources window described above and dragging and dropping them into the bottom window panel. The bottom window has three possible selections - the virtual filesystem, the track editor and the recorder settings. Each of these can be selected by clicking on the icons in the left panel of the bottom window.
The virtual filesystem represents a view of the filesystem setup in a track of the CD-R(W) to be written to later. Note that this is not part of the actual filesystem on your computer and so manipulating the files here will not affect the ones in the computer filesystem. The virtual filesystem can be managed and edited by right-clicking the mouse.
The track editor shows you the tracks that you have selected to be burned to the CD-R(W). You can edit them using the track editor by right-clicking the mouse before committing them to be burned. The recorder settings view enables you to change from the default, the various parameters for recording, e.g. recording speed etc.
FillstateStatus
At the bottom of the GnomeToaster window is the Fillstate status panel. This shows you the current space that will be taken up by the selected tracks as a percentage of the space available on the CD-R(W). This space utilization is also displayed in megabyte (MB) units as well as the audio playing time.Duplicating CDs
It is easy to make a duplicate of a CD using GnomeToaster. The source CD should be placed into the CD drive and the drive selected in the data source top window. The tracks in the source CD will be displayed in the right window panel. Select the tracks you want (or all of it if you are duplicating the CD) and drag them into the tracklist panel in the bottom window. The tracklist panel is displayed in the bottom window right panel when the trackeditor is selected for the bottom window.After you have selected all the tracks you want, you should select the recorder settings parameters. This is done by clicking on the recorder settings button in the bottom window left panel. Usually you need to change only the recording speed to one which can be adequately supported by your drive. The Multisession box should usually be off while the Fixate box turned on.
To start the actual recording (burning) of the CD click on the Record button at the top of the GnomeToaster window.
