CD Burning / Joliet file names

[mohoel]

Hi. Recently burnt a CD with some MP3's, many of which have extremely long names, and truncated before end of file name. This was burned with "Joliet" extensions; intent was for my son to be able to play on Windows.

Since many of the songs lost the .mp3 extension due to truncation, he has to manually play the files (which works, but is very annoying).

He argues that if I had burned the CD under Windows, the file names would be good and that it was just using Linux to burn that caused the problem. Never mind that he knows that Windows makes more coasters than playable CD's, but short of re-burning some of these songs, does anyone know if you get up to 256 character file names burnt onto a CD under Windows?

Thanks -
MoHoel

[demian]

I don't think it will be any different in windows. The Joilet extensions support up to 64 characters per path component. I just tried it here and as soon as a single filename or directory name exeeds 64 characters it's truncated. There was, however, no truncation when I nested 5 directories with 60 characters per path.

[lsibn]

Joliet is something enabled by mkisofs, not cdrecord. Like demian said, each name is limited to 64 characters. If you are having more than 64, I'd put them on a CDRW disc just to show him that they wouldn't be "fine."

Furthermore, the joliet extensions are not managed by cdrecord- they are stamped when you run mkisofs. And you must use the -J argument, which takes no additional parameters:
mkisofs -vJ -o mp3.iso mp3s/

You might want to mount the file to make sure it works before you burn it, too:
mount -t iso9660 -o ro,loop /path/to/iso /mnt/cdrom

which would allow you to make sure all the files are there and accounted for, before unmounting it, burning it, and deleting it.

[mohoel]

Thanks guys. That helps.

I find myself constantly vascilating(?) between truly enjoying Linux by being able to do incredibly powerful things, and trying to use Linux like a Winblows box (just point/click/pray) to prove to the rest of my family that you don't have to be a total geek to use it. CD burning has been one of those areas that if you just know and use a few commands, it's clean and solid. However, trying to use some of the GUI's in front (a-la Winblows method) it leaves questions....

Again, thanks.
MoHoel

[lsibn]

I looked up vascillating in my webster's. It has ten words beginning with vas, none of which is pronounced like that. The correct spelling is 'vacillate.'

But, more to the point, you don't necessarily want a box like Windows. Remember, Windows is big, ugly, expensive and unreliable. The UI sucks, in many ways. For programs (like cdrecording frontend 'gcombust') where you have what seems like thousands of options, usually the defaults are just fine for whatever you want to do. Remember, in Windows, you only have the defaults, and are out of luck if you need anything more.