80 minute CDR discs have become commonplace in stores. Many audio CDs exceed 74 minutes, but even some under 74 minutes cannot copy without the 80 minute discs under Windows. Here's why -- Windows (Adaptec) copying programs add an extra 2 seconds between tracks. If you ever copied a CD under Windows, and compared the total time on the CD, you would find it to be 2 seconds longer per track on the copy than on the original.

80 minute CDs have a major problem, though -- they are not compatible with all CDROM drives nor are they compatible with all audio players.

Under linux, these problems are solved. First of all the easiest program to use is xcdroast, which you can invoke by either opening a console and typing it in, or by the Start (K symbol in KDE) | Gnome and X Apps | Run program (then type xcdroast). You need to be root to run the program, unless you've set up a CD writers group.

Two features help to, in most cases, obviate the need for 80 minute CDRs. First of all linux permits overburning which Windows programs do not permit. Actually most CDs can record slightly over 74 minutes, about 74 minutes and 45 seconds on average in my experience. Of course overburning is at your own risk and will not work in all cases, and you will be warned that the CD may turn out to be unreadable, but at least Linux gives you the chance. If you fail you will have to throw away the CDR disk but they are now going for under $1. apiece. If you have to throw out the 74 minute disc, then you can either make an 80-minute CD knowing it won't work in all players, or make your own CDs, removing one song from the playlist, and adding it to the playlist of another CD that has maybe 60-odd minutes of music on it.

The second thing that will get you by is the option which can be checked off in Setup, to skip the last 2 seconds of each track when reading. That way when the writing part adds 2 seconds between tracks, it will be cancelled out. Of course in the rare case that you're burning a classical music CD with tracks running together, your only option is to run cdrecord in a console with the DAO (disk-at-once) option, which will prevent it from adding 2 seconds per track.

One of the features of linux cd recording is that it forces you to make a copy of the files on the hard drive first. Windows users used to fast CD copying without an image on the hard drive first might not like the idea, but it has been my experience that direct CD-to-CD copying without a hard drive image first is not reliable. In fact it should not even be considered except in the following scenario-- You are using a source CDROM connected as the only device on the secondary IDE connector, and the target device (writer) is on a SCSI connector with no other devices on the SCSI connector in use. Then you can PROBABLY get away with not having a hard drive image first. Otherwise do not even think about making a copy of a CD without putting an image on the hard drive first, under ANY operating system.

When copying a CD that is itself a copy use an additional measure. When you select the tracks to read, mark each of them with an offset of minus 2 seconds -- this will wipe out the extra 2 seconds per track made by Windows on the original copy.