14 DAY TRIAL // Xfburn is an application that allows users to burn CD, DVDs, and Blu-rays, whether it's just data, ISO files, or music files. We’ll now take a closer look at this minimalistic software that has only a few options.
There was a time when burning your own disks was something normal and users were doing this operation on a regular basis. The advent of high-speed Internet and USB drives has made this operation a little redundant, but not everyone has access to this kind of options.
In fact, we have to keep in mind that a large portion of the planet still can't afford to buy proper USB drivers or to access the Internet with ridiculous bandwidth. In fact, many people still rely heavily on CDs and DVDs and that is the main reason why most distros can still fit on a CD, even after we think that they have become obsolete.
As you can imagine, there are numerous applications that can do this sort of job on Linux. Ubuntu users are familiar with Brasero, and this software is integrated in numerous other operating systems, but there are others, like Xfburn for example, which are just as good.
Installation
I tested the software in Ubuntu 14.04 (Trusty Tahr) and I had no kind of problems with it. The only issue that you might encounter is the fact that the repositories have an older version of Xfburn, 0.5.0. If you're fine with that, then you just open Ubuntu Software Center and install Xfburn from there. The process is simple and painless.
If you want the latest version, then things are a little more complicated. You will need to compile the software, but that’s actually simpler than it sounds. It's not a big application, it takes little time, and the fact that it's already present in the repositories helps a lot.
Normally, if you're compiling something from scratch, you're going to run into dependency problems. Each dependency has to be installed, one at a time, after the ./configure command fails. Xfburn actually has a lot of dependencies, but that's not a problem because we're going to use the Ubuntu repositories to make our work easier. All you have to do is to run these commands in a terminal (you need to be root in order to make it work):
./configure
make
sudo make install
Usage
The interface of Xfburn is actually very simple and many users will appreciate this fact. This is a software designed to do a specific task and it's not encumbered by numerous features that most users are unlikely to use.
Users can choose from “Burn Image,” “New Data Composition,” “Blank Disc,” and “Audio CD.” Most of them are self-explanatory, with the exception of Blank Disc. This one can be used to delete a rewritable CD or DVD.
The interface is actually tabbed and some of the options will open as tabs. “Burn Image” opens a popup window with a few clear options and all that users really have to do is to provide the path to the image and the writing speed. The “Blank Disc” opens a similar window, but “New Data Composition” and “Audio CD” actually open in tabs. All the features are straightforward and with very few options. As expected, writing Audio CD needs GStreamer installed.
The interface can be enhanced a little from the View menu and users can choose to see a file browser at all times. The Preferences are barren and the only interesting option is the one allowing users to see hidden files.
