On 10/27/05, Hans du Plooy wrote:

On Thursday 27 October 2005 17:28, Sunny wrote:

...

can someone recommend this device for using under SuSE? Someone had problems?

I'm careful for Sony drives, although they make good hardware, they are the ones pushing for hardware copy protection and all that. Hence I avoid them.

Very good point. :) Ok, lets change the question then: which manufacturer is most linux friendly (i.e. supports the community, has a firmware updates, which can be run under linux, etc.) I know that recently there were problems with Pioneer trying to shut down an open source project, so they are off the list. Something else? -- Svetoslav Milenov (Sunny)

* Sunny [10-27-05 11:18]:

Ok, lets change the question then: which manufacturer is most linux friendly (i.e. supports the community, has a firmware updates, which can be run under linux, etc.)

I have always had very good luck with Plextor _all_ drives. -- Patrick Shanahan Registered Linux User #207535 http://wahoo.no-ip.org @ http://counter.li.org HOG # US1244711 Photo Album: http://wahoo.no-ip.org/gallery2

On Thursday 27 October 2005 18:48, Randall R Schulz wrote:

On Thursday 27 October 2005 09:08, Hans du Plooy wrote:

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I'm careful for Sony drives, although they make good hardware, they are the ones pushing for hardware copy protection and all that. Hence I avoid them.

And do you inform Sony of your reasons for boycotting their products? If not, you're only harming (or, at least, limiting) yourself.

I have, actually. Haven't received any reply though. I am quite diligent in letting manufacturers know why I buy or don't buy their products. I let them know why I don't buy certain things and what they could do that would make me consider it. I let them know why I returned certain products. And, were I use a brand that consistently give me excellent service (Gigabyte, for instance), I let them know. Hans

Hi, On Thursday 27 October 2005 09:08, Hans du Plooy wrote:

...

I'm careful for Sony drives, although they make good hardware, they are the ones pushing for hardware copy protection and all that. Hence I avoid them.

Apropos this concern: - "Forrester: Sony's Blu-ray will win DVD format war against Toshiba's HD-DVD" http://www.publicradio.org/columns/futuretense/ (see the Oct. 24 commentary). Summary: "Forrester Research says Sony's Blu-ray high-definition DVD format will defeat the HD-DVD system led by Toshiba in the battle for consumer acceptance. "Next-generation DVDs will bring sharper pictures and more interactive features. "Forrester is among the first to predict victory for Blu-ray. Forrester analyst Ted Schadler says, however, the battle will drag on for years, similar to what happened in the 1980's when Sony's Betamax videocassette format lost out to VHS." If Forrester Research is right, then our options may become even more limited in the near future.

...

Randall Schulz

On Thursday 27 October 2005 21:16, BandiPat wrote:

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I'm careful for Sony drives, although they make good hardware, they are the ones pushing for hardware copy protection and all that. Hence I avoid them. [snip] I think I would agree with Hans here. Although some of the earlier Sony models that Randy mentioned seem to work nicely, I'm not sure I would look at anything newer than those. After doing research recently in

On Thursday 27 October 2005 12:08 pm, Hans du Plooy wrote: preparation of purchasing a unit, the LG model GSA-4167B got my vote and works wonderfully in Linux!

Just to clarify, all the Sony drives I have ever used worked 100% in linux, and I still get new client boxen that are fitted with Sony drives. I have never had any problem with them. Their CD players are also good, their Discmans have by far the best sound quality I have heard on a Discman. They know how to make optical drives. My gripe with them is not with their hardware, but with their attitude towards people's freedom to write whatever they like on a CD/DVD. They don't trust us not to be criminals. That is my problem with the whole anti-piracy issue. Hardware copy protection is like selling cars that can't drive, because you can't trust the average citizen not to run someone over. I don't know what LGs stance is on copy protection. I haven't heard anything from them for or against. But their CDRW and DVDRW are reasonably priced, perform very very wel, operate very quiet, and simply don't break. (They had some dodgy CDROMs though). I would give Philips my support, because they have actually condemned the idea of hardware copy protection. Unfortunately I cannot find them locally, so I have to find something else. Makes I would avoid: AOpen - broke my genuine Windows 2000 CD (blessing in disguise, but it could have been my SUSE CD!). They're noisy, they don't last. Sony - see above HP - since their early CDROM drives, right through to their current drives, I've had discs written on an HP drive that simply wouldn't read in some other drives. And they don't last. And they're expensive. Makes I would recommend: LG - see above. Incidently, LG's drives are made by Hitachi. Philips - see above plus, after a lifetime of owning a variety of Philips products - TV, soundsystem, electric shaver, toaster, ect - I have never seen a Philips product fail. BTC - yet to see one fail, they perform well, they're not expensive TEAC - see BTC. If it can survive my parents it can survive anything. Plextor - in the days when CD writers were too expensive for everyone to own one, one of the engineering labs at the university had one machine with a CD writer for everybody's use. Can't remember the brand, but seeing as there's a permanent queue of people waiting to burn something, from 6 AM to midnight, this drive didn't last a month. They replaced it with a Plextor IDE drive. This was three years ago, I believe that same drive is still running there. Yamaha - I have seen Yamaha drives in similar situations like the Plextor above. Never heard of one failing, never heard of any compatibility issues. And they have a drive that has both SCSI and IDE interfaces! Again, like Philips, every single Yamaha product I've ever owned/worked with have impressed me. Hope that helps.

On Friday 28 October 2005 23:10, Sunny wrote:

Now, as I read I remember the brand who was ageist open source tools :) Plextor it is: http://www.cdfreaks.com/news/11886

And ... actually the drive I want to replace, thus the orig. post, is/was Plextor 712A. I died on me 1 day after the warranty expired, And so it happens with all leading brands, doesn't it. Toyota is known for

I wasn't aware of this, but in all fairness, the article doesn't say that Plextor is against opensource tools in general, but that they have a problem with this particular too because (they claim) it infringes on their rights and does not honour the terms and conditions that accompany the drive. Although I don't like their stance, but they do seem to have a reasonable complaint. their reliability. But the *one* Toyota I had was a horrible car, kept breaking down, kept costing me money. Hans

Sunny wrote:

Now, as I read I remember the brand who was ageist open source tools :) Plextor it is: http://www.cdfreaks.com/news/11886

And ... actually the drive I want to replace, thus the orig. post, is/was Plextor 712A. I died on me 1 day after the warranty expired, precise heh. Yes, they was a name in that business, but looks like not any more. I have a friend with another one dies on him.

Anyway, I just ordered NEC drive for 38$ shipped in US, I've read a good reviews. The deal details are on fatwallet.com.

Cheers

-- Svetoslav Milenov (Sunny)

Good choice. I think you'll be happy with the NEC drive. I know I am. Mike

On 29/10/05, Carl William Spitzer IV wrote:

To this list of recommendations I add LiteOn having had a CDRW and recently DVDRW they work. My usage is slight mostly backups about 300+ disks only caution generic CD media seem OK but Maxell brand about 10% coasters.

CWSIV

I personally will not use Sony brand CD/DVD reader writers. I've seen a lot fail with no warning and while only a couple of months old. My experience comes from running a computer lab at the uni' I worked at with 120 PC's under my charge. These CD's were used very , very little I might add. We habitually disabled them through the BIOS so that students were unable to use them to listen to music and therefore hogging a machine that somebody may have needed for course work. We, as technicians would only enable them when we were working on the individual PC at the time. -- ============================================== I am only human, please forgive me if I make a mistake it is not deliberate. ============================================== Take care. Kevan Farmer 34 Hill Street Cheslyn Hay Staffordshire WS6 7HR

On Mon, 2005-10-31 at 12:26 +0200, Hans du Plooy wrote:

On Sunday 30 October 2005 00:34, Carl William Spitzer IV wrote:

...

To this list of recommendations I add LiteOn having had a CDRW and recently DVDRW they work. My usage is slight mostly backups about 300+ disks only caution generic CD media seem OK but Maxell brand about 10% coasters.

Not to sound pessimistic, Carl, but I would take that as a sign of trouble. I'm not particularly happy with the LiteOn CD-RW drive I got for our mail server. It wouldn't read the one of my Debian discs (quality media). It was number 13 so I just skipped it, but later, when the box was in the the server cabinet, now lying on its side, I tried again and it read it perfectly.

It wouldn't read the disc when the drive is lying flat, but on its side it does? Sounds fishy to me. The discs is known to be good. It reads perfectly on the dodgiest of old drives I have lying around.

Well I finished with those Maxcell and mow have the Fry's GQ generic brand and so far mo problems on them ditto their dvd-r in the LITEON dvdrw. -- _______ _______ _______ __ / ____\ \ / / ____|_ _\ \ / / | | \ \ /\ / / (___ | | \ \ / / | | \ \/ \/ / \___ \ | | \ \/ / | |____ \ /\ / ____) |_| |_ \ / \_____| \/ \/ |_____/|_____| \/ | \ /|\ || |\ / |~~\ /~~\ /~~| //~~\ | \ / | \ || | X |__/| || |( `--. |__ | | \| \_/ / \ | \ \__/ \__| \\__/