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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.carno.net.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!news.cs.su.oz.au!metro!metro!munnari.OZ.AU!spool.mu.edu!newshub.tc.umn.edu!mr.net!news.maxwell.syr.edu!EU.net!Germany.EU.net!Dortmund.Germany.EU.net!interface-business.de!usenet From: j@ida.interface-business.de (J Wunsch) Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.misc Subject: Re: Bulletproof UNIX CD Recording Date: 4 Feb 1997 13:25:14 GMT Organization: interface business GmbH, Dresden Lines: 76 Message-ID: <5d7dbq$osb@innocence.interface-business.de> References: <01bc11db$a38a6f80$c8ec0c26@cd001456.interramp.com> Reply-To: joerg_wunsch@interface-business.de (Joerg Wunsch) NNTP-Posting-Host: ida.interface-business.de X-Newsreader: knews 0.9.6 X-Phone: +49-351-31809-14 X-Fax: +49-351-3361187 X-PGP-Fingerprint: DC 47 E6 E4 FF A6 E9 8F 93 21 E0 7D F9 12 D6 4E To: roycew@mindspring.com Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:35110 comp.unix.bsd.misc:2318 "Royce White" <roycew@mindspring.com> wrote: > This is a site that has a system for recording CDs in many UNIX > flavors. It has a number of decent credentials. The system looks > robust and easy to use. Now since you're posting this in technically oriented newsgroups, and i'm incidentally also the maintainer of FreeBSD's worm driver, let's go into technical discussion. First, a couple of quotes from your Web Site. : For network recording you don't need to dedicate a workstation for : disc production. CD-Studio works in the background leaving your : workstation free for other tasks. Plus, CD Studio is upgradeable and : flexible. It's easily upgradeable to over 26 different platforms, : including NT. The list of supported platforms looks indeed impressive. Sure, FreeBSD ain't there. (Why do you crosspost it to the FreeBSD group then? Did you verify the BSD/OS binary runs there? BSD/OS binaries in general run on FreeBSD, but i'm afraid the SCSI subsystems are too different.) : CD Studio grows as your recording needs grow. You can even record and : label CDs unattended. Hmm, but that's nothing brilliant, but something i would basically just *expect* from software in a multitasking multiuser environment. (What the heck should i attend there anyway? :) But i would be more interested to learn about your multitasking abilities and limitations. Don't pretend there weren't any: we all know that CD recorders need streaming data at at least N * M KB/s, with M being ~ 155 for data recording, or 175 for audio recording, and N being the ``speed multiplier'' (1, 2, 3). So if the source of your data is too slow for some reason (excessive seeks required on the source disk, getting data over an overloaded network), your burner simply starves. So now, the question is when exactly it will fall over? Also, on a related note, how much memory uses your system as cache? This cache is required to be actual physical memory (won't make sense otherwise), so the decision will be relevant to how much system memory is required at least to successfully run the tool at all. Just for comparision, here's the figures as i am running: . i586/something machine, with 32 MB RAM, . 2 x CD-R (Plasmon RF4102) with 2 MB internal cache, . 5 MB userland cache to burn a CD-R. The system, of course, runs full multiuser while burning in background, including a load of X11 applications -- just my usual desktop. There are usually between 30 and 60 MB of data paged out (thus of danger to be requested for pagein operations while the recording is in progress). Also, the machine occasionally performs various CPU and VM intensive server operations like Ghostscript printer filtering flawlessly. (At this point, it fell over when being equipped with only 16 MB, but still running X11. That basically demonstrates the limits.) I haven't tried to create the CD image ``on the fly'' yet, and feed it directly into the burner, although i'm fairly positive this should work. Can you tell us how your system compares to this (apart from a fancy GUI to operate it, which my version is totally in lack of)? (Mailed and posted, since i'm afraid you're not following the newsgroups you're posting to. You should, however, that's part of the Usenet Netiquette.) -- J"org Wunsch Unix support engineer joerg_wunsch@interface-business.de http://www.interface-business.de/~j