DVD/CD Writing with K3B

K3b is a CD and DVD burning application for Linux systems.

1. Open the "K" menu in the lower left hand part of the screen, under the Multimedia section there will be an entry "CD & DVD Burning (K3B)". Start that program.

   

2. If this is your first time running K3B, a "Writer Speed Verification" dialog will pop up. Click ok to accept the defaults and dismiss the dialog

   

3. Under the "Settings" menu, click "Configure K3B".

   

   Here, you can set options and other settings. The most important setting is under the "Misc" section. Click ont he "Misc" icon and select an appropriate "Default Temporary Directory".

   

   • If you are burning a full CD-ROM, you'll need 800MB of free disk space
   • If you are burning a full DVD, you'll need 5GB of free disk space
   • If you are burning a full dual-layer DVD, you'll need 10GB of free disk space

   The default setting is not sufficient for most actions, and it is HIGHLY recommended that you select a different directory for the temporary data. A good candidate would be a local scratch disk or your home directory. Contact us if you'd like some assistance finding a temporary directory.

Once you have configured K3B to your liking, you are now ready to create some discs.

1. At the bottom of the application, click the appropriate icon. If for instance you'd like to create a DVD (or dual-layer DVD), click on the "New Data DVD Project" icon.
2. Right-click the text "K3b data project" on the left and select "Rename". Rename this to what you'd like your DVD to be named. In this example, we are naming it "Archive 2004"

   

3. The bottom half of the window will now transform into an area which will display information about your current project.
4. The top half of the window is split into two areas as well. The right hand side will display the contents of the directory currently selected from the left hand side.
5. Now, you can use the file browser at the top to drag files and directories onto the project below. If you accidentally add files you don't want to burn you can select them with the mouse and hit the "Delete" key on your keyboard. This will not delete the files from your hard drive, only remove them from the disc burning project.
6. When you are ready to burn a DVD, click the "Burn..." button at the bottom right. A progress window will appear to let you know how far along the burn process is.

   

7. Click on the "Filesystem" tab and make sure that all three boxes under "File Systems" are checked if burning a DVD.

   

8. Only select the top two if burning a CD-R.

   

9. Make sure a blank DVD is in the drive, and click the "Burn" button.

The time it takes to complete a disc depends on the speed of your CD/DVD writer. It is generally advised that you try to avoid any CPU or disk intensive work while creating a DVD or CD.

If you encounter any errors, feel free to e-mail us.