14 DAY TRIAL // Brasero is an application from the GNOME stack that is used to burn CDs and DVDs or to creates copies from other disks. It's been around for many years, and it's trusted implicitly, but it doesn't hurt if we analyze it a little bit more thoroughly.
Brasero has been the default CD/DVD writing tool for Ubuntu, Fedora, and a few other major operating systems for very long time, and it has slowly evolved with the GNOME project, although not as much as some of the other apps and packages did.
In any case, if you're a Linux user, then you most likely have already heard about Brasero, but it's also likely that you don't know it's capable of doing more than just burn disks.
CDs and DVDs are no longer all that relevant, not to mention Blu-rays, so the importance of apps such as Brasero has diminished somewhat. It also means that the development of Brasero has been slowing down and rightly so. It's hard to implement new features when users of that application no longer find it useful.
It's also worth pointing out that Brasero is just one of the many applications of its kind on the Linux platform. There is a ton of them, although not all are maintained like Brasero. The fact that it's one of the important apps from the GNOME stack contributed to its continuous support, even when it seemed unnecessary.
Installation
I tested Brasero in Ubuntu 15.04 (Vivid Vervet) where it's included by default, and I noticed that it was still at version 3.12. This is not all that unusual for Ubuntu, so I checked Fedora 22, and it had the same version, despite the fact that it comes with GNOME 3.16.2. Only then, I checked the source packages in the GNOME repos, and I saw that the latest one made available in April 2015 is 3.12.1.
Usage
One of the reasons why Brasero is used as a default disk-writing solution in so many distros is that it has a clear and simple interface, just the right amount of options, and it's stable.
Users won't have to guess where everything is when they open Brasero for the first time. Everything they need is available on the left side: Audio Project, Data Project, Video Project, Disc Copy, and Burn Image. Let's take them one at a time.
Audio Project is self-explanatory. If want to create a regular Audio CD, all you need to do is to drop the files and the application will take care of the rest. There are no options for audio encoding if you're wondering.
Data disc is also quite clear. If you just want to burn a disc with a bunch of files you just drag them there or add them from the file browser, and choose the speed and whether to close the session or not.
The Video Disc option works pretty much the same way, just by adding files to the project, although not all the video formats are supported, which can be a problem.
The last two options are so straightforward that they can be grouped. Disc Copy does just that, it allows users to make an ISO copy from a disc, and Burn Images lets users burn ISO images onto the CDs or DVDs.
Brasero also comes with a very limited cover editor for the CD and DVD cases, but don't expect too much from it. Also, users will find that the application comes with a bunch of plugins, most of them already active, but others must be installed for better functionality.
The Good
The Bad
Also, when trying to burn a video CD, I noticed that it wouldn't accept MP4 files. In fact, I had to install another package called transcode to make it work, but new users might not figure this out on their own.
