Hi, The 'owner' of K3b, Sabastian T. has this posted on the www.k3b.org page: "Do not use Kernel 2.6.8 A patch that was introduced into the kernel shortly before the 2.6.8 release makes K3b and also the dvd+rw-tools unusable on Linux (unless run as root but that is not recommended). The very important GET CONFIGURATION MMC command is rejected by the kernel for reasons I cannot see and writing commands like MODE SELECT also fail (K3b cannot detect CD writers without it) even when the device is opened O_RDWR. Until this issue has been solved I strongly recommend to stick to kernel version 2.6.7. Update: The kernel guys are currently fixing the problem so the next kernel release should work again. :) Update 2: The problem is NOT fixed in 2.6.8.1 Update 3: Be aware that kernel 2.6.8 also contains the memory leak which makes it impossible to write audio cds, even as root." Now this is Not Distro specific, so we don't know if the SUSE 2.6.8 in 9.2 has any in-house tweaks for this prob, but he certainly describes the "Need to run as root" prob. Also he stated that newer kernels will also have issues. Perhaps this is the reason Shilling at SUSE has modified 'cdrecord'? My advice == Follow the work-arounds as you have discussed here on the list and await more news. PeterB