Linux Friendly Hardware Database ??

[John Summerfield]

Michael A. Peters wrote:
> Many moons ago I bough a Sony DVD burner.
> It worked in Linux from day one - worked extremely well.
> 
> I finally ran out of my supply of DVD-R and bought another 50 spindle.
> It will not burn to them - first spitting out the disk and sucking back 
> in, and then failing when it comes to the burn.

I recently bought a spindle of 50 CD-Rs.

The first three I burned were in non-sony drives (pioneer DVD burners 
except I don't recall whether one of the three attempts were in my Mac), 
and all three were coasters.

I don't recall having CD coasters resulting from burn errors before.

It happens I have a Sony CD burner, came with my thinkcentre. It can 
burn the CDs.

Sony's on my no-buy list.


http://www.digitalfaq.com/ has a lot of general information about DVD 
media and drives. http://www.digitalfaq.com/media/dvdmedia.htm is a good 
starting point.


> 
> I googled the error and found that my drive is old enough that for the 
> new media types, I need to update the firmware on the drive. Went to get 
> the new firmware, and read the instructions. You can not update the 
> firmware from a DOS boot floppy, you update the firmware from within 
> Windows.
> 
> That's a bit of a problem for me, I do not have windows, and this is NOT 
> the kind of task I would expect to work in wine (though I may be wrong, 
> I kind of doubt it would).
> 
> So I'm on the hunt for a new DVD burner, but I'd like to find one that 
> allows firmware updating via boot floppy or bootable flash drive. I'm 
> having trouble finding one.
> 
> Is there a hardware database of Linux friendly hardware that takes into 
> account things like firmware updates?
> I hate having to replace hardware that otherwise functions perfectly, 
> but just needs new firmware.
> 
I've never had the need to upgrade the firmware in a CD/DVD drive.

What does Sony support say? Sony has some involvement with Linux.

-- 

Cheers
John

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