[ale] Using 'tar' directly to a DVD

[Benjie]

I am not sure that it is possible with tar by itself.  Under Linux an
application would need to send a command to the dvd hardware to set
the laser to burn.  Filesystem activity alone wont do that.

2008/8/8 Michael B. Trausch <mike at trausch.us>:
> Alright, so this is bugging me a bit, and I _thought_ there was a way to
> sequentually write discs without the tools, but it would seem that there
> isn't under Linux (I know FreeBSD can do this).
>
> I'd like to use tar to create a multi-volume backup to a DVD, something
> like this:
>
> $ tar --create --multi-volume -f /dev/scd0 ${HOME}
>
> However, the following is what happens:
>
> Friday, 2008-Aug-08 at 19:27:35 - mbt at zest - Linux v2.6.24
> Ubuntu Hardy:[0-1/501-0]:~> tar --create --multi-volume
> -f /dev/scd0 /home/mbt
> tar: /dev/scd0: Cannot open: Read-only file system
> tar: Error is not recoverable: exiting now
>
> Friday, 2008-Aug-08 at 19:27:46 - mbt at zest - Linux v2.6.24
> Ubuntu Hardy:[0-2/502-2]:~>
>
> The disc in the drive is a blank DVD-R.
>
> It looks like there may be a workaround, having tar dump a certain
> number of bytes to a FIFO, using another program to read from that fifo
> and burn the stream from it to the DVD-R, and then have it pause, do the
> change, and start again with the next volume, but I think that it'd be
> somewhat silly to have to do all of that.
>
> Does anyone know of a way to use tar directly with a burner device to
> burn backups on Linux without such strange workarounds?
>
>        --- Mike
>
> --
> My sigfile ran away and is on hiatus.
>
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