Xfburn Not Installed By Default In Mint 19 (Tara)

[Night Wing]

Maybe it's me and I somehow missed it in the Release Notes, but Xfburn is not installed by default in Mint 19 (Tara). Could someone who has Mint 19 installed, would you check and see if Xfburn is listed under Multimedia and give a reply back?

[Pjotr]

Not by default, no. There's no default burning app in Cinnamon and MATE either. Probably because burning DVD's is getting out of fashion...

[phd21]

Hi "Night Wing",

I just read your post and the good replies to it. Here are my thoughts on this as well.

Anyone can install "xfburn" or my favorite "K3b" DVD/CD/Blu-Ray software from the Software Manager or Synaptic Package Manager (SPM).

Probably because burning DVD's is getting out of fashion...

I hope this comment is untrue. I truly hope people will keep using and pushing to keep DVD and Blu-Ray disc software and hardware updated and current because whether people realize it or not, using DVD and or Blu-ray discs is a superb method to backup important data with for personal and or business use and provides for long-term permanent storage that can last decades with regular discs (keep out of direct sun or high heat) or a millennium (1,000 years) using "m-disc" DVD or Blu-Ray discs which can withstand high heat etc... and no other backup option can provide that. Hard drives like old mechanical platter drives and the new SSD and USB sticks, etc... usually have 5 year lifespans (some SSD 10years) give or take a year (some last longer) BUT anything on them can be accidentally erased, over-written, or damaged, not so on DVD or Blu-Ray discs. And, DVD discs are very low-cost around $25us for a hundred discs, "m-discs" are a little more but well worth it, Blu-Ray discs cost more but can hold a lot more.

Most people could easily backup their important documents, data, and other files and folders to one regular DVD (4.7gb) or dual-layer DVD (8.5gb) every month or more using the "Data" option in DVD/CD/Blu-Ray software. You can use another disc or discs for multimedia file backups (pics, music, videos) as "data" discs.

-- If you have pictures and or videos of anything and everything, etc... you can go one step further and create really nice DVD discs with menus that play in regular DVD or Blu-Ray players, etc... see post below, that cannot be accidentally erased or over-written.

Previous post - Problems with creating Video DVDs. - Page 2 - Linux Mint Forums
viewtopic.php?f=90&t=270928&start=20

-- Most businesses could easily make permanent backups to Blu-Ray disks with various storage options from 25gb to over 100gb per disc. This applies to people with a lot of data as well.

...

[Night Wing]

I know in Mint 18.3 Xfburn was listed in the Mint menu under Multimedia. I thought it was odd it was not listed in Mint 19. Since I didn't see it anywhere, I immediately went to the Synaptic Package Installer, did a search for it and found it. Then I installed it so it shows up in my Mint 19 menu under Multimedia.

A little off-topic now, but the gist is still the same. I've NEVER been "a slave to fashion". Forty years when I had to wear suits to work, my choice in shoes with those suits was always a nice comfortable pair of shiny.........wait for it............"leather penny loafers". And I still wear my dress penny loafers today when I have to wear a suit or casual dress wear for some social function.

Getting back on point, how do the "ones in fashion" install their Mint iso's to their computers hard drives if they don't use a DVD? Do you download the iso and install on it a USB drive? Then use the USB drive and install to your computer(s) hard drives if you have more than one hard like I do with my desktop tower computers. If not, tell me how because I'm all "eyes".

[Moem]

Do you download the iso and install on it a USB drive?

Yes, I make a bootable USB drive and use that to install Mint on the computer's internal disk. Not because I'm 'in fashion', but because my laptop doesn't have an optical drive.

[Night Wing]

I've noticed many of the newer laptops of today don't have optical drives. I've got 4 computers (2 desktop towers, 2 laptops) and the all of my computers have optical drives. Of course, my computers are older than most peoples. The oldest is a 2010 year model and the newest is a 2013 year model.

I prefer burning an iso on a DVD disc. I bought a 100 DVD discs pack and the cost was ($20.00). That comes out to $0.20 for each DVD. Pretty inexpensive.

[phd21]

Hi "Night Wing", & Everyone Else,

USB external DVD or Blu-Ray burners work very well and are reasonably priced, also internal drives can easily be made external using a "Sata to USB" adapter.

I have an older LG USB external DVD burner writer drive that has worked well for years and its around $25us now with "m-disc" support, but unfortunately mine is not "m-disc" capable. I would love to have and recommend getting a good Blu-Ray / DVD burner writer that supports "m-disc".

[all41]

Blu-Ray burner writer burner that supports "m-disc"

Doesn't m-discs cost about $15 each? That would be an expensive coaster.
That's $.15/gb while dvds are about $.05/gb, and hd storage is <$.02/gb.
8Tb hds cost about 150.00. It would take 80 m-discs to store 8Tb ($1200), 1700 dvds ($340)
Then consider physical storage and organization

[kyphi]

Getting back on point, how do the "ones in fashion" install their Mint iso's to their computers hard drives if they don't use a DVD?

Nothing to do with fashion but more to do with technology obsolescence. I regretted the passing of the CD when operating systems required more space. I also regretted the passing of LightScribe which made labeling a CD (or DVD) a breeze. Does anyone remember the 1.4 MB floppy disc? Not much good now. USB sticks can accommodate heaps of data and their only shortcoming, in my view, is that you cannot easily tell them apart or label them.

Xfburn is simple but effective and it works well in Cinnamon.

In your main menu under Accessories, are there entries for "USB Stick Formatter" and "USB Image Writer"? They will burn your ISO to a USB stick.

[mint4all]

I've noticed many of the newer laptops of today don't have optical drives. I've got 4 computers (2 desktop towers, 2 laptops) and the all of my computers have optical drives. Of course, my computers are older than most peoples. The oldest is a 2010 year model and the newest is a 2013 year model.

I prefer burning an iso on a DVD disc. I bought a 100 DVD discs pack and the cost was ($20.00). That comes out to $0.20 for each DVD. Pretty inexpensive.

Greetings! One of the major benefits of CDs/DVDs -- imho -- is that they are excellent archives and can't be corrupted by ill-behaved (or infected) programs. With a little care (read: avoid physical damage) they'll last a long time, snail-mail well, and have ample writing space to identify their content. In any event, for XFCE-users, the XFBURN app is bundled in the "XFCE4-GOODIES" meta-package. During the beta testing, i commented on the fact that many of the xfce goodies should come standard on the .iso, rather than having to install it later. I'm not sure my suggestion made it into the final release ... Will check this out, though, once i download the new .iso and <chuckle> burn it to a DVD.

[phd21]

Hi "all41", and Anyone Else Interested,

FYI: The "m-disc" DVD or Blu-Ray discs last about 1,000 years, a millennium, according to their tests and can survive better than regular discs even in high heat, etc... And work in regular DVD and Blu-Ray players although you do need an "m-disc" burner writer drive to create them which are reasonably priced.

The "m-disc" discs do cost a little more, but are well worth it, and the price would go down if more people and businesses bought them and used them (market economics, supply and demand).

FYI: Anyone can still use regular and re-writeable DVD and Blu-Ray discs for testing software and applications, and for backing up, but use the "m-disc" for permanent long-term secure backups or DVD and Blu-Ray video projects.

DVD/CD/Blu-Ray discs can be easily stored vertically in a spindle for saving space.

M-Disc optical media reviewed: Your data, good for a thousand years - PCWorld
https://www.pcworld.com/article/2933478 ... years.html

M-DISC - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-DISC

Current Pricing today in the USA from Amazon.com.

Amazon.com: Verbatim M-Disc DVD-R 4.7GB 4X with Branded Surface - 25pack Spindle
$29.99 ($30) = $0.83 cents per disc.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B011PZA68Y/re ... B005Y4NKE0

Amazon.com: Verbatim M-Disc Blu-Ray BD-R 25GB 4X with Branded Surface - 25pack Spindle
$55.71 = $2.23 cents per disc.
https://www.amazon.com/Verbatim-M-Disc- ... Src=detail

Amazon.com: 10 pack Verbatim Bluray 100gb BD-R XL Triple Layer 4x Speed Blu-ray Inkjet Printable Discs, $45.97 = $4.59 per disc
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01DGG5ZP4/re ... 75326&sr=1


Hope this helps ...

[catweazel]

Not by default, no. There's no default burning app in Cinnamon and MATE either. Probably because burning DVD's is getting out of fashion...

I think it's already way out of fashion. I have several stacks of CDs and DVDs hiding in a dark cupboard that I bought years ago, including a pile of costly BlueRay disks. I doubt they'll ever get used, even for beer coasters.

[AZgl1800]

Do you download the iso and install on it a USB drive?

Yes, I make a bootable USB drive and use that to install Mint on the computer's internal disk. Not because I'm 'in fashion', but because my laptop doesn't have an optical drive.

DITTO:

the thin phablets and foldover backwards laptops like my ASUS TP500L do not have Optical Drives.
USB is the only way to get it going again in case of disaster.

[all41]

@phd21,
I see there are better prices than I looked at.
Still rather pricey per gb though.
I wonder how they can predict data retention of 1000 years, and what would be the targeted market for such longevity.
Perhaps archiving for a time capsule would need that. I suppose widespread usage would indeed drive the costs down and
probably spur research into increasing the storage capacity even further.

@catweazel
+1
I also have stacks of unused cd/dvd recordables, even rewritables.
All my systems have optical except one, but very rarely used for storage.
Old cds and dvds make good scarecrows for the garden. I hang three or four in a couple strands
at each end. As the wind blows they constantly spin and flash in the sun--does the trick.

[MtnDewManiac]

Maybe it's me and I somehow missed it in the Release Notes, but Xfburn is not installed by default in Mint 19 (Tara).

My guess was that, in the interest of saving on bandwidth, bytes, and b... b... b... work, lol, Clem chose to not include an application that most users probably either remove or ignore after installing K3B.

I mean, sure, there are probably two, maybe even three people that still use xfburn - but probably not a great many more than that, realistically. I didn't even realize that xfburn was still being actively developed, and was surprised when I learned otherwise. The fans in the audience will be pleased to know that it is (or at least was, late last year) - version .5.5 was released just six and a half months ago.

According to the developer:

xfburn is still a new program, and does not yet do all common burning related
tasks.

...which was news to me, since I thought the application had been in existence for years, since Mint 14 at least (but I could be wrong). I guess if I'd set out, ten years ago, to assemble a motorcycle and it was still mostly in boxes in the garage - or at least still lacked some features that would make the motorcycle complete (like two working brakes ), I might tell people that "It is still a new project." Out of embarrassment, if nothing else.

The README states that xfburn still does not have multi - session support. Still cannot save/load "compositions," do verification, copy discs, et cetera. It also states that the application is currently in "maintenance mode" as the developer does not have a lot of time. (Which happens, I know, such is life.)

So - IMHO - it's probably sort of like soda pop. You have Coca Cola (k3b) with like 93% of the market share. Maybe 99.9965%, lol, since it's k3b, but I think Coke only has around 93%. Then there's Pepsi (Brasero, maybe?) with 6.5%. All the other disc-burning apps/methods out there, well... they share that remaining .5% of the market. Add to that the fact that there does not seem to be as many people actually burning optical media as there used to be...

...and it is as if a significant percentage of the population is no longer consuming soda pop at all - and ask yourself just how likely it is that the next random restraunt you walk past... will have Fanta on their menu, lol.

Not that there's anything wrong with choosing to use xfburn - or to drink Fanta, for that matter - but the biggest reason I can see for choosing to have it preinstalled is "because most Xfce setups have it." And that's a silly reason, IMHO (since, again, it's still in our repos).

Getting back on point, how do the "ones in fashion" install their Mint iso's to their computers hard drives if they don't use a DVD? Do you download the iso and install on it a USB drive? Then use the USB drive and install to your computer(s) hard drives if you have more than one hard like I do with my desktop tower computers. If not, tell me how because I'm all "eyes".

I'm about as far from "fashion" as one can get (I did have some fun with a model once, though ), so that question probably wasn't directed towards me, lol. But, since my optical drive is permanently pooched and my laptop does not have an option to boot from USB, I do all my (fresh) linux installs to my laptop's hard drive... from that same hard drive.

The process is remarkably easy (after someone walked me through it using the smallest steps imaginable, of course ). You basically end up with the situation of powering up your computer, reaching the grub boot menu - and seeing the downloaded live linux .ISO appear in the grub menu as if it were an installed thing. It's still just an .ISO, so there's no persistence or anything. OtOH, it makes for the most responsive (quickest) "live linux experience" I've had - much faster than if the .ISO were burned to DVD or a USB flash drive. Other than that, everything proceeds as per normal. (Remember to NOT delete the partition that you have the .ISO on when going through the installation process, though, lol.)

Take a look at post number... Well, the Powers That Be here have decided, in their infinite wisdom, that we have zero use for post numbers within a thread . But look in this thread:
viewtopic.php?f=46&t=91140&start=20
Page 2, for a post by WinterTroubles, in which he quotes text from austin.texas; specifically, about using grml-rescueboot. Between those two helpful people, I (slowly and painfully) came to understand how to do this thing. You can read the next few posts in that thread to see that there was... much fear on my part, worry that I'd screw things up badly. Everything went fine.

My original setup was two separate versions/partitions of linux Mint (sharing the same swap partition). I like to keep two supported versions so that if there's ever a catastrophic issue with one, I'll probably still be able to get online and beg for help fixing it. This made things simpler for me, because I could download the .ISO that I wanted to install on partition "B" onto partition "A" and the installation process wouldn't overwrite that .ISO file. Then repeat, swapping destination partitions and the other one is done, too.

IF you only intend to (ever) have one installed version of linux at a time on your computer, you might not have a handy partition that you can "park" your downloaded .ISO on. If this is the case, I highly recommend creating at least a small additional partition so that you can do this thing I have (probably badly) described. Both for the convenience (if you have no blank disc or flash drive handy) and speed (when compared with the two more traditional installation methods) - but also because the live .ISO will remain listed in your grub menu (and remain bootable) unless/until you delete that .ISO. Call it really cheap insurance against powering up your computer one day and not being able to use it because of a serious problem; just reboot and choose the .ISO, that should at least allow you to get online and attempt to troubleshoot the issue (assuming it's not hardware-related).

I think you might have been able to install Mint using the above method in the time it took me to hunt up the thread I referenced above and type in this post - it really is fast.

I see there are better prices than I looked at.
Still rather pricey per gb though.
I wonder how they can predict data retention of 1000 years, and what would be the targeted market for such longevity.

I don't know, but I'm guessing... That the data on those "1,000-year" discs wouldn't survive nine seconds in my microwave oven any better than any other DVD/CD that's ever gone in there for a little deconstructive therapy. Although I do wonder if the nice "mini lightning" lightshow would look any different.

If using a low-wattage microwave, you might need to run it for 11 seconds. But 9 seconds has always worked for me. Curiously, I have only ever managed to achieve ONE "mini lightning" event per disc, regardless of how much longer I let the ol' magnetron run. Maybe it's like the old overheating joke about electronics, lol? (Every electronic component actually runs on smoke - and once one releases its tiny store of smoke into the atmosphere, it no longer functions.) Only with neat visible electricity instead of smoke, IDK.

BtW, using your microwave for only nine to eleven seconds to make an optical disc permanently unreadable (unless you happen to have a scanning electron microscope in your toolbox, along with a good bit of time) doesn't hurt the microwave oven a bit. Been doing it for, IDK, 15+ years now.

However, if you decide to throw a wadded up piece of aluminum foil in there to see it bounce around, or a fluorescent tube bulb in order to see it light up, well... you're on your own there....

Regards,
MDM

[all41]

Curiously, I have only ever managed to achieve ONE "mini lightning" event per disc, regardless of how much longer I let the ol' magnetron run

They get a peculiar crackled look
When I do them en masse I usally spread them around in a circle overlapping about a third so there may be 15 or so.
It makes a good light show--but it also makes a stink. Wonder if that odor is toxic

Lends a new definition to cd/dvd burner

[phd21]

Hi "all41",

@phd21, I see there are better prices than I looked at.Still rather pricey per gb though. I suppose widespread usage would indeed drive the costs down and probably spur research into increasing the storage capacity even further.

The "m-disc" prices are not bad at all compared to regular DVD/Blu-Ray discs and they last basically for many lifetimes where hard drives will not usually last more than 5-10 years, if that. More widespread usage will certainly lower prices and spur innovation.

what would be the targeted market for such longevity. Perhaps archiving for a time capsule would need that.

The target market is everyone, every business, government, etc... that wants to retain anything for the long-term history. You can fit a lot of data files, pictures (images), videos, documents, music, etc... on a DVD and much more on Blu-Ray discs. You can have entire family histories for generations to come, business history, government history, etc...

For instance, how much space is taken up by photo albums, family records & history books, etc... You can scan all non-digital printed photos, all holiday greeting cards, documents, videos (including videos and pictures of everything given to or received from anyone (gifts, etc...) or that children or adults created, antiques and household items, etc... whatever you are interested in preserving for your lifetime and for the future of others, and put all of it on one or more "m-disc" DVD or Blu-Ray discs. Tip1: You can do that throughout the year on regular or "m-disc" discs and then combine them onto a yearly or semi-annual "m-disc" disc. Tip2: you can also use smartphones, digital cameras, camcorders, even webcams, to scan or take videos of printed photos and all of the other stuff I mentioned before to create digital still pictures and or video files for putting onto discs.

For businesses, because "m-disc" is a much more durable medium, it would be a very reasonable expense to backup onto "m-disc" Blu-Ray or DVD discs every month or even every week in addition to other backups.


Hope this helps ...

[catweazel]

Does anyone remember the 1.4 MB floppy disc?

Does anyone remember the 80kB floppy disk?

[MtnDewManiac]

Does anyone remember the 1.4 MB floppy disc?

Does anyone remember the 80kB floppy disk?

8", read-only, 1970 or '71?

Regards,
MDM

[catweazel]

Does anyone remember the 1.4 MB floppy disc?

Does anyone remember the 80kB floppy disk?

8", read-only, 1970 or '71?

I bet you don't remember these:



Or these:


I should stop there. We've overrun the OP's support thread.