I want to make incremental backups by writing each day's new or changed
files to my cdrw drive.

Can somebody indicate whether it is practical to do this using
cdrecord -nofix? I guess it's possible, because I can do it under XP,
but I don't want to have to reboot just to do backups.

Where is the best documentation (books, websites, etc.) on this?

The CD-Writing HOWTO by Winfried Trümper v2.9.3, 23 July 2000 barely
mentions the -nofix option (in the context of making audio CDs).

[ bogus newsgroups removed, crossposting trimmed ]
["Followup-To:" header set to comp.os.linux.misc.]
On Sat, 06 Mar 2004 23:53:58 GMT, Matt staggered into the Black Sun and said:
It's possible, but *why*? Why not just use cdrecord's multisession
support, or get the kernel patches from
http://w1.894.telia.com/~u89404340/patches/packet/ and use UDF packet
writing? The problem with using -nofix is that you can't really read
the CD on some CD-R* drives until you fixate it. If you use
multisession recording, the disc will be fixated after every session and
you can read the whole disc after ejecting it and reloading it (to force
the CD-R* to reread the TOC.)

(First session)
mkisofs -r -o /tmp/temp.iso -path-list list_of_files_to_backup.txt
cdrecord -multi speed=X dev=A,B,C /tmp/temp.iso
(2nd-(N-1)th sessions)
mkisofs -r -M /dev/cdrw -C `cdrecord -msinfo` -o /tmp/temp.iso -path-list
list_of_files_to_backup.txt
cdrecord -multi speed=X dev=A,B,C /tmp/temp.iso
(Final session)
mkisofs -r -M /dev/cdrw -C `cdrecord -msinfo` -o /tmp/temp.iso -path-list
list_of_files_to_backup.txt
cdrecord speed=X dev=A,B,C /tmp/temp.iso

Note that you may want to use -graft-points and tweak the pathlist to
specify that each session appears in its own directory when the CD is
burned. Also, there are a lot of scripts and tools out there that will
partially automate this process--search freshmeat.net for "CD backup",
or fool around wiht k3b for an hour. HTH,

--
Matt G|There is no Darkness in Eternity/But only Light too dim for us to see
Brainbench MVP for Linux Admin / mail: TRAP + SPAN don't belong
http://www.brainbench.com / Hire me!
-----------------------------/ http://crow202.dyndns.org/~mhgraham/resume

If what you've got will fit on a CD use my lazy method: I just use burn
CD-RWs twice a day and don't even think about incremental backups. I also
don't fixate on fixating.

Some day when I have more than a CD worth of work files, I'll just create a
new directory for the new files that need to be backed up.

Yup. I'm lazy bordering on comatose.

--Rod

__________

Author of "Linux for Non-Geeks--Clear-eyed Answers for Practical Consumers"
and "Boring Stories from Uncle Rod." Both are available at
http://www.rodwriterpublishing.com/index.html

To reply by e-mail, take the extra "o" out of the name.

Dances With Crows wrote:
Because I didn't know any better.

That helps a lot.

I found I had to use a mkisofs command like:

mkisofs -r -M 0,0,0 -C `cdrecord -msinfo dev=0,0,0` -o incrembu.iso file

for steps 2 to N-1.

Thanks.