The number one complaint that came up against open source software and Linux until recent times was their poor usability. Users had to be geeks in order to make much use of any thing in Linux and other UNIX like software. But with some recent innovative initiatives, some Linux distributes have become successful in making Linux popular among the general “non-geek” public. By introducing Ubuntu, Canonical Inc. has been the success story for last couple of years.
When Linux was first introduced to the public, like most other Linux software, disc burning software operated using the shell prompt or command prompt. This was a major setback that made the software unpopular and useless. However, there was a segment of users who preferred command line tools. Their specialty was that they were either highly technical users or application developers.
GnomeBaker is one of the first few disc burning software’s introduced for Linux. Although it initially operated with limited functionality, more recent versions offered a number of features, which was a definite competition to any commercial disc burning software. Up until recently, these software supported CD burning only. However, the recent releases have been designed to support DVDs and nowadays, GnomeBaker’s simplified user interface provides high usability even for a novice Linux user.
I will disturb this flow of disc burning software list just to make an important note. When you burn any type of disc such as data, audio, disc image etc., you may need to make them Windows compatible at the time of burning. Not all the Linux disc burning software supports this feature. As an example, few days ago I wrote a data DVD using GnomeBaker and it was not readable under Windows as file names were shorten. It was my mistake not to go in to application preferences and select the disc to be readable under Windows.
K3B is one of the most popular disc burning software for Linux. It is available for KDE desktop environment but it can also be used in other desktop environments such as Gnome, Xfce and window managers such as Fluxbox, Enlightenment etc. and I can firmly state that it is the most advanced and easy to use disc burning software Linux ever had.
The list of all disc burning software for Linux is too long for me to mention here. So just do a Google search and see how many open source disc burning software you find. The interesting thing is that some of them are available for Windows free of charge. So, you can simply switch to the new software without paying money for software vendors!
