tape backup

This is a total newbie question but ... I'm having a great deal of problems with backing up to tape. In fact I'm avoiding it at present and backing chunks of user files to a CDR at fairly regular intervals. I understand (from the manual) the process of engaging, retensioning etc. the tape but not how to actually perform the backup. The KDE utility doesn't recognise that a tape is present and (as I understand it) the YAST utility only creates a backup up volume on the disk itself. I have in the past on a previous release of Linux used BRU which seemed to work well but this doesn't seem to be part of the Suse release. Any help or advice very gratefully received. David Woollard-Kingston Flegg High School