K3b is one of the finest and most versatile cd authoring programs ever, in any operating system. K3b handles music, video, and data equally well, and has no trouble burning the "ISO" (complete file system image) CDs needed to boot your computer directly from its CD drive.
You can also use K3b to copy almost any kind of CD or DVD that doesn't have built-in copy protection.
Remember, too, that if your drive won't burn DVDs, no software—not even K3b—can make it into a DVD-burner. Most R/W (Read/Write) drives that can read DVDs can't make them, even if they do a fine job of writing CDs.
You can install K3b using your favorite distributions package manager (apt, yum, yAst, etc.) by typing something like this at the command prompt:
yum install k3b
or
apt-get k3b
or simply go to: k3b.org and click on the download link. The software requires KDE libs and core which will be installed if you use your package manager installer.
Running K3b
So far we haven't encountered a CD or DVD drive that K3b failed to detect or that needed any setup action beyond clicking "Okay" on the defaults. When you start K3b for the first time it will detect your CD R/W (or DVD R/W) drive and that will be that. You will soon be taken to an opening screen that has a big "Tooltip"' window splashed across it.
As with all other Linux programs, you can keep the "Tips" windows from showing up when you start the program by unchecking the "Show tips on startup" box. It's probably a good idea to let them come up at least the first few times you open the program.
With K3b set up (automatically) and ready to run, there are four types of projects from which to choose:
New Audio CD Project
New Data CD Project
New Data DVD Project
Copy CD
K3b considers everything other than music "Data." For the sake of this tutorial, choose "New Data CD Project."
Now choose the data you want to put on the CD. The top half of the K3b screen is divided into two sections: files on the right, folders on the left. Put the entire "home" directory, for example, on CD. Put the cursor on the "home" directory listing and, while holding the left mouse button, drag it down into the "Current Projects" area, then release the mouse button.
Look down in the lower left corner of the window to see how much space on the CD your data takes. A typical CD can hold 700 megabytes. Add or subtract data as you see fit. Assuming we've put either a blank recordable CD or a rewritable CD in our drive: Click the "Burn" button in the lower right corner of the K3b window and wait. When the burn is done, the cd will eject and a trumpeting will alert you to the completion.
Making a music CD is exactly the same, except you choose "Audio CD Project," and instead of selecting a whole folder at once, place each music file (mp3, wav, aiff, ogg) individually on it so you can set the order in which they'll play on the finished CD. To move files around within the "Project" listing, "drag" them with the mouse while holding the left mouse button and release the button where you decide they best fit in your custom-made playlist.
More About Using K3b
When using Reusable (Rewritable) CDs, K3b will automatically "blank" them—that is, remove what you had on them before—but will ask you to confirm this action first so you don't delete important material by mistake.
Copying CDs is self-explanatory; just step through the processes as they come up, following the onscreen instructions.
Making or copying DVDs is the same as working with CDs, except you must have a DVD burner and not just a CD burner to use this feature.
Burning ISO images from which your computer can boot directly requires a slightly different procedure. Select "Tools," then "CD," then "Burn CD Image." (Or if you have a DVD-write drive, you can burn a bootable DVD instead by clicking "DVD" instead of "CD." After that, select the ISO image you want to put on CD or DVD, and you will get a special screen for ISO burning.)
The built-in K3b "Help" file is surprisingly good. It contains most of the information you'll ever need for daily K3b use. We suggest playing with a rewritable CD for your first experiments just in case you make errors. |
