Given that the first three questions are
answered OK, and the fourth I don't know the
answer to, I will only look at Q5.
To write a CD on Linux depends forst on what
type of CD Writer yu have, IDE or SCSI. The CD
Writing tools for Linux, like cdrecord, expect
to find a scsi device, and if they don't, the
tools fail. To solve this, a module has been
created that allows an IDE device to be seen on
the system as both (and separately!) an IDE and
SCSI device. Assuming your CD Writer is an IDE
device, you will need to edit your
/etc/lilo.conf file. Depending on what is in
there with the various systems you have
installed, you should find something similar to
the following in the file:
image = /boot/vmlinuz
label = Linux
root = /dev/hda2
initrd = /boot/initrd
append = "hdc=ide-scsi"
Note the line starting with "append". It is
this line that enables scsi emulation of IDE
devices which will allow software such as
cdrecord to findand use a scsi device, even
though it is really only an ide device. In my
case, my CD Writer is connected to the primary
ide device on my secondary ide bus. If you have
a CD Writer on your slave device of your primary
ide device, the "hdc" part would be changed to
"hdb". Make that apprporiate to your system,
then run lilo as root and reboot.
If you have a scsi CD Writer, the above steps
are totally unnecessary and should not be done
unless there is some serious need tohave one of
your IDE Devices seen on your system as a scsi
device (I have never had that).
Next step is to get appropriate CD Writing
software. For the last 2 1/2 years I have used
X-CD-Roast. It is a very useful GUI CD Writing
program. Get it from http://www.xcdroast.org or
maybe it is already installed on your system.
Be sure to run it as root (you can su to root
from your normal user account. Before y
