Tag: CD/DVD

How To: Get CDROM/DVD Information From The Linux Terminal

In today’s article, we’re going to learn how to get CDROM/DVD information from the Linux terminal. What we’ll be doing is getting hardware information. It should be a brief article, as we’re just going to cover two commands.

I won’t even need to detail the various options, as we’re just after the hardware information. I’d say it’s going to be a short article, but that has a way of blowing up in my face and those articles sometimes end up longer than the “regular” articles! You get what you get. If  you don’t like it, write an article or two for me!

This particular article is actually based on one of my unix.stackexchange.com answers that didn’t get much notice, even though it was the accepted answer. Frankly, in modern days there’s not much need to know this information, as optical disks become a thing of the past. I decided to place the content here, hoping it’s easier for people using search engines. People still use optical media.

As you may know, most of my traffic comes from search engines. That’s the primary motivation for moving this answer here. I’m also motivated by laziness! I want a nice and easy day, for reasons I’ll probably detail in the next meta article. I also want it more easily indexed.

If you don’t know much about your CDROM/DVD player/recorder, then this would be a good article for you. In fact, even if you do know the basics, this is still probably a good article for you. You can learn a lot with a few simple commands. You’ll see…

So then, let’s learn how to get CDROM/DVD information from the Linux terminal. Sure, there’s probably a GUI way to do this, but let’s just stick to the terminal – after all, every Linux user has a terminal available. Plus, I don’t know a GUI method.

How To: Get CDROM/DVD Information:

In today’s article, we’re going to learn how to get CDROM/DVD information from the Linux terminal. What we’ll be doing is getting hardware information. This will require an open terminal. So, to open a terminal, just press CTRL + ALT + T and your default terminal should open.

With your terminal now open, you may need to install the first application we’ll be using. The first application we’ll be using is ‘wodim’, an application used to write data to an optical disk. If you’re using a major distro, it’s in your default repositories. If you’re using apt, then install it with:

Of course, adjust that command to suit the distro you’re using, be it yum or even zypper. Then, run the following command:

Consult the output. That’s it. It should be obvious. Also, if you get any errors from this command, along with the second command I’ll share, remove any disks from the drive. 

For the second command to find CDROM/DVD information, and cdrecord is more likely to be installed by default, you need only to use this command:

Note the similar flags. It’s pretty much the same as you’re going to get with wodim, except cdrecord has a chance of being installed already. I don’t think I’ve come across a distro with wodim installed by default, but I could be wrong. I have come across distros with cdrecord installed by default. So, there’s that.

If I’m wrong and a distro exists with wodim installed by default, be sure to yell at me in the comment section! I’ve been wrong before, so this won’t be a first. I’m a big boy, I can handle it! Also, I’m kinda curious, so please do let me know in a comment.

Anyhow, enjoy the output from either command. They’ll tell you a bunch of information about your optical drives. Both of the commands will help you get CDROM/DVD information. Pick the one you like best and run with it. It’s your computer, you do what you want!

Closure:

As you can see, it’s pretty easy to get CDROM/DVD information from the Linux terminal. As you can also see, you have yet another article! There sure have been a lot of ’em. Again, I reach out to see if you’d like to write an article. I sure could use a break! We’ll soon cross the 300 articles mark! I am very grateful to those who have already helped. 

Thanks for reading! If you want to help, or if the site has helped you, you can donate, register to help, write an article, or buy inexpensive hosting to start your own site. If you scroll down, you can sign up for the newsletter, vote for the article, and comment.

How do I ‘Boot to USB’? (Or CD/DVD, if Such is Available)

In order to install Linux, you need to be able to boot to USB (or CD/DVD – with USB being more common these days and many devices not even having CD/DVD drives). The goal of this article is to help you boot to USB or to optical media, so that you can install or repair your Linux system.

To install Linux you pretty much have to boot to USB or to a CD or DVD. It’s true, you can actually install directly from your regular disk drive, but that’s a convoluted method that few people will ever need. I may cover that method at some point, but today is not that day!

You may also need to boot to a live Linux instance for other reasons. Maybe you need to repair your installation? Perhaps you need to grow your partition because you have run out of room? Or, just maybe, you need to recover your data so that you can do a fresh installation – or so that you can start the recovery from your backed up data?

It’d be rather pointless to enumerate the many reasons why you’d want to boot to USB. There are many reasons and it’s a skill you’re going to need. Trust me, you need to know this stuff.

I say USB because that’s the most common today, but you may also need to boot to CD or DVD. Your hardware may actually be so old that it won’t even let you boot to USB. So, for the sake of this article, let’s just assume you’re booting to some form of external media, be it USB, optical media, or even an SD card. No matter what you’re trying to boot as an alternative media, the process is pretty much the same.

Booting to USB

Booting to USB, what’s the purpose? The purpose is to install or repair an already running system. It means booting to something other than your default internal drive (under normal configurations) and using that booted media to effect change on your system.

As I said above, there are many reasons why you’d want to do this. It’s a pretty common thing, especially among Linux users. There are many questions asked about this process and I’ve decided to document the methods here.

However, there’s no way I can possibly make this article truly definitive. In fact, I’d appreciate it if you’d help. In the comments section, fill in the blanks for me. You have hardware that I may not have access to, so you can tell us what works for your hardware and the article will be a more complete source of information. It’s your time to shine!

How to Boot to USB

In order to boot to USB, you have to have fairly good timing – or a willingness to sit there and pound on the same key over and over again. In a traditional sense, you’re aiming for a boot selection menu that you can access after POST (Power On Self-Test) and that split-second before the OS starts its boot sequence.

You’re not trying to access the BIOS, you’re trying to access the boot selection menu and there’s a narrow window to get it right. The good news is that the key to access the BIOS is different than the key to access the alternative boot menu. So, a good working strategy is to press the right key on your keyboard over and over again during boot while hoping for the best.

The question is, which is the right key? You don’t want the BIOS menu, unless you plan on changing it permanently. You only want the temporary boot menu, which another animal entirely.

So, I have a bunch of hardware. I also have a search engine. I’ve made an attempt to find the temporary boot menu keys and to document them all in one place.

The list of keys!

     Acer: ESC, F2, or F12
     Apple/Mac: OPTION
     Asus: F8 or ESC
     Compaq: ESC or F9
     Dell: F12
     HP: ESC or F9
     Lenovo: F8, F10, or F12
     MSI: F11
     NEC: F5
     Packard Bell: F8
     Samsung: ESC, F2, or F12
     Sony: F1, F2, or F3
     Toshiba: F12

NOTE: This list isn’t exhaustive nor is it completely accurate. In some cases, you may need to actually enable this in your BIOS. Samsung, for example, will not show the temporary boot selection menu unless you’ve first disabled “Fast Boot”. Other OEMs may require similar changes.

The above keys should get you into the temporary boot menu, where you can choose to boot to USB, CD/DVD, an external drive, a microSD card, or whatever. It’s an essential step in both booting and repairing your Linux computer. It’s a good idea to memorize it once you know which one works for you.

As I mentioned above, you can help. If you have a device that’s not listed, please let me know in the comments. Some manufacturers have more than one way to access the screen, so be sure to let me know if your device is different. The more data we get, the more people we can help.

Thanks for reading! As always, feedback is fantastic, you can sign up for the newsletter, and you can donate. You don’t have to donate. The site will remain online regardless, but you can help cover the costs. If I keep this schedule up, we should have a new article in two more days – so stay tuned!

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