Re: Create audio cd from mp3s drag and drop style

[Neal Lippman <nl@lippman.org>]

On Tuesday 13 August 2002 09:05, Hall Stevenson wrote:
> > After helping someone get a new WinXP computer up
> > and running, the only thing I saw which I really liked
> > was the program that allowed selection of mp3s and
> > then automagically create an audio cd.
>
> <snip>
>
> > Does it exist? None of the programs I found in the usual
> > places appears to resemble the WinXP app I liked (it
> > was EasyCD creator).
>
> I've never tried it, but I'm willing to bet that you can do
> this from gmc or nautilus (gtk/gnome file managers) into a
> gtk/gnome cd-burning app like gtoaster. I'm positive that
> gtoaster says it supports drag-n-drop. I'm not familiar with
> KDE but I'd guess it can do the same...

	I suspect (maybe someone can correct me) that one major difference between 
the WinXP experience and Linux is that windows supports packet-writing to CD 
drives, which Linux does not (yet). Packet writing allows you to copy things 
piece-meal to a CD-R, rather than writing an entire track at once. Therefore, 
under windows, you just copy things file by file, and when you eject the 
drive, the software "finalizes" the CD by burning the TOC and closing the 
track. Under Linux, you accumulate the files that you want to burn in a 
separate program (like XToaster), and then burn all at once to the CD, or 
build an iso file (mkisofs) and then burn (cdrecord) from the command line.

	I think the one way that windows does beat Linux is ease-of-use in using the 
file manager, in that things like cd recorders are "integrated" into windows 
explorer, while i have not seen similar integration with linux based file 
browsers like Konq, Nautiliux, or xwc. Partly, of course, this occurs because 
essentially ALL filesystem interaction is via windows explorer, AND window 
supports relative few filesystems compared to linux's support of so many.

	The analogous functionality in Linux would be to be able to issue the 
following:
	mount -t iso9660 -o packet /dev/cdrw /mount/cdrw
	cp myfiles /mount/cdrw
	mkdir /mount/cdrw/otherdirectory
	cp moreofmyfiles /mount/cdrw/otherdirectory
	umount /mount/cdrw
	(here you get a pause while the cd subsystem finalizes the cd, closes the 
track, etc.

That's not here yet.

nl