14 DAY TRIAL // Nero Burning ROM is probably the best known CD and DVD writing option, until now specific to the Microsoft Windows OS; the open-source community and all Linux lovers needed to use some other alternatives.
However, yesterday Ahead Nero improved its software offer after releasing Nero Linux, a solution enabling writing information and disk images on CD-s, DVD-s, bootable drives, audio CD-s and dual layer DVD-s.
The Linux version is planned as freeware for Nero 6 full version users.
Nero Linux automatically detects all internal and external (USB), CD and DVD writer units supported by NeroAPI 6.6.
Though many times the hot-plug function is not supported by the various open-source distributions, Nero Linux detects without any difficulties external CD/DVD writers, even if they get connected after booting. The application encodes and decodes instantaneously, calling some external resources (mpg123, ogg123).
Nero Linux is available in RPM (RedHat, Mandrake, Suse, Fedora) and DEB (Debian, Knoppix) versions. There is however some room for doubts about the superiority of the Linux version of Nero as compared to other software designed for optical disk writing.
The main competitor of the Nero novice seems to be K3b, a program also including video encoding capabilities. K3b is capable of copying movies on DVD and later on encoding them as AVI files for further recording on CD-R. Though the race between the two competitors is tight, K3b provides a better planned, hence more attractive graphic interface, as well as more powerful features.
The release of the main Windows-specific tools in a Linux version might induce a new trend amongst the Microsoft-exclusive software providers.
