Sun CD-ROM FAQ

Attention UK & European users!
Check out our UK mirror (run by FAQ co-maintainer Martin Hargreaves) at http://www.datamodl.demon.co.uk/suncd . Unfortunately, it appears this mirror is quite out of date and attempts to contact Martin have been unsuccessful. This link will be removed in the near future.

Contents

• Introduction
• Background Information
• Booting a Sun from a Non-Sun CD-ROM
• Multimedia
• Using a CD-Recorder (CD-R) on a Sun workstation
• Using a CD-ReWritable (CD-RW) drive on a Sun workstation
• HOWTOs

Introduction

• Preface
• What's new in this release?

Background Information

• Where can I find out more?
• What are the relevant newsgroups?
• As an overview, what are my options for using a CD-ROM drive on a Sun?
• What CD-ROM drives have been shown to work?
• What CD-ROM drives are doomed to fail?
• What CD-ROM drives are recommended?
• How do I know if my CD-ROM is not natively Sun compatible? What error message is displayed?
• What are the specifications of the SunCD, SunCD+, SunCD2+, SunCD4?

Booting a Sun from a Non-Sun CD-ROM

• I just modified the drive according to these directions. It boots fine, but I get an "unrecognized vendor" error. Is this a problem?
• What do you do if you have an old Sun that doesn't know about boot cdrom (or CD-ROMs for that matter)?
• Can I make a bootable tape from a CD?
• Not to look a gift horse in the mouth, but why does my AppleCD 300 work for booting and mounting?
• If I have a drive that has 2048 bytes/block and want to be able to mount it (but not boot), what are my options?
• Why does SunOS 4.1.1 bomb when I try to mount CD-ROM discs and what can I do about it?
• Why can't I mount certain ISO-9660 discs and what does XAR have to do with it?
• How can I set up my kernel and drive to mount all 6 discs from a Pioneer multi-disk CD-ROM reader?
• If I mount a PC-format CD, will SoftPC let DOS applications access it?
• If none of this works, is there any other way to access a PC CD-ROM?
• CD-ROM drives on other non-Sun operating systems

Multimedia

• Can I use a CD-ROM to play audio CD's? What programs are available?
• My NEC CDR-1750 works fine as a drive, but I can't get it to play audio CD's with workman, x_cdplayer, etc. How can I get it to work?
• Can I record audio tracks on a SPARCstation?
• Can I digitize audio tracks over the SCSI bus? (CDDA tracks)
• Does Sun audio support a mixer input for CD audio?

Using a CD-Recorder (CD-R) on a Sun workstation

• Introduction to CD-R
• Sun compatible CD-R hardware
• CD mastering software for SunOS & Solaris
• Tips & Tricks for mastering CDs on SunOS & Solaris
• CD-R related links

Using a CD-ReWritable (CD-RW) drive on a Sun workstation

• What is CD-RW?
• How does one use CD-RW?

HOWTOs

• Modifying a Toshiba 3301/3401/4101 CD-ROM Drive for use on a Sun workstation
• Modifying Solaris 2.4 to 2.5.1 for PC type CD-ROM drives

Please email any comments, suggestions, etc. to Mike Frisch or Martin Hargreaves. We welcome any feedback on the content of the FAQ.