[SOLVED] Brasero problems in Ubuntu 12.04: cannot create MP3 disk

[achim_59]

I recently had to re-install Linux (Ubuntu 12.04) after the hard drive died on my IBM T43. HD dead obviously means an upgrade was no option. Hence everything was re-installed from backups.

The previous installation was Ubuntu 10.04. There seem to be a number of compatibility issues but on the whole I've got system working with a few exceptions. I'm guessing that I'll need to start more than one thread to get to the bottom of each problem.

This question concerns Brasero.

I want to burn a number of .mp3 files (approx. 180) onto a CD.

First attempt: I open Brasero from the application menu and select "start audio project". When I start to add the mp3 files, the space usage indicated for the blank CD quickly shoots up. It looks like Brasero wants to do a conversion to .wav or maybe .flac, though I cannot be sure. All I really know is that the 180 files are not going to fit using an audio project, althought the total size is only around 600MB.

Second attempt: I start a data project instead. However, adding files to the project inserts them in a random order, which is definitely not what I want. There doesn't seem to be an option for specifying the order of the files. I could drag and drop each file into the project individually, which might solve the ordering issue, but this would take me close to an hour and is very error prone (I might forget a file).

Third attempt: I checked the man page for Brasero. The following option is specified:

-n, --ncb
Open a data project with the contents of burn:/// URI.

That might solve the ordering issue, so I did this but the command "brasero -n" achieved precisely zero. Ditto for "brasero --ncb". The HD whirred a bit but application simply didn't start.

I checked logs /var/log/dmesg and /var/log/syslog but these show nothing relevant, since they mostly have to do with devices as far as I can tell. Is there another log I should check?

Does anyone know why the above mentioned attempts failed? Is there another way to achieve what I want (i.e. burn 180 .mp3 files in the correct order)?

Any suggestions welcome.

Achim

[Rubberman]

Yes. When you create an audio disc it will convert mp3 to WAV format and 600mb of mp3 files will probably translate to about 10x that in WAV format. Ie, 10 discs worth...

[achim_59]

Yes. When you create an audio disc it will convert mp3 to WAV format and 600mb of mp3 files will probably translate to about 10x that in WAV format. Ie, 10 discs worth...

Hi Rubberman,

Thanks for the confirmation about the conversion to wav. That really only leaves the data project option if i want to use Brasero. I don't suppose you know why the order of the files gets randomized, do you? Or better, how to stop them from being randomized?

Alternatively, if I use the Gnome CD creator, will I get the files in the "standard" alphabetical order or is it just as unpredictable as a Brasero data project? Surely there must be some way to get the files onto the CD in the correct order...

Hmmm... perhaps a Perl script would do the trick. Perl usually copies files in alphabetical sequence from one directory to another. I could even force the order by storing the names in an array and sorting it. But it is a bit of work and I have other things to do first.

Any ideas for quick lazy solutions are welcome.

Achim

[achim_59]

At this stage I only have a partial solution to the problem, but at least it works. The full saga of my researches can be found here.

The short version is "use Gnome's CD Creator". This allows me to burn a CD with the files in the correct order. I have attempted to use other software (e.g. xcdroast) but came accross issues relating to a war of words between the maintainers of CDRtools and the fork version CDRkit. Ubuntu comes with the latter by default and I thought that might be where the problem was. See the above ḿentioned link to find out how to replace CDRkit (if you want to that) and some information on what problems you might encounter.

I'm marking this as solved even if the issue isn't totally cleared up.