ThaCrip

After you create the new 'wine prefix' (which in your case is the "ImgBurn" folder before 'drive_c') you then install ImgBurn (i.e. "SetupImgBurn_2.5.8.0.exe") into that prefix like usual. my actual ImgBurn program is installed to, for example... "~/.PlayOnLinux/wineprefix/ImgBurn_32bit601/drive_c/Program Files/ImgBurn/ImgBurn.exe" (I am using 32-bit wine prefix so that's why it's 'Program Files' instead of 'Program Files (x86)' etc like the 64-bit stuff would be. either 32bit or 64bit should be okay though). basically from the "drive_c" (which is equivalent to "C:\" on real windows) it's exactly like the Windows folder structure at that point. so basically my 'ImgBurn_32bit601' is the same as your 'ImgBurn' folder in your screenshot. but once you setup the wine prefix you still need to install ImgBurn INTO that prefix before you can even attempt to run the program as all the 'wine prefix' does is pretty much like a windows installation is installed. but you still need to install your Windows program (i.e. imgburn) into that though before you can use it. trust me, this is easier than it may appear to you p.s. I also have a desktop shortcut since it makes starting it nice and easy that way.

If you want best quality when burning a standard audio CD always do it from a proper lossless source (i.e. FLAC/WAV etc). because once you are on a MP3 you can't improve quality at that point as it will never get any higher than the MP3 itself, so technically you are downgrading the audio quality by going from MP3 back to a Audio CD. granted, if your MP3 is of high enough bit rate chances are most people won't notice the difference though vs a lossless source. but generally... if your WAV files are standard 44.1/16 (which is what a standard Audio CD uses), ImgBurn should be able to use those with no special configuration needed. that's how I burn standard Audio CD's on my Linux setup using ImgBurn as I temporarily convert from FLAC to WAV as I can't install madFLAC on Linux etc. so that's how I work around it (I use Foobar2000 to convert FLAC files back to WAV when I burn a occasional Audio CD). so I am assuming if it works with standard WAV files on Linux, it should on Windows to with no fancy configuration needed. p.s. personally, unless I have no choice, I never burn standard Audio CD's from a MP3 source. but pretty much all of the music I care about I always got a high quality lossless source (basically FLAC) as this way no matter what I do, like burn a Audio CD or convert to whatever lossy format (MP3/AAC/Opus etc) I want, it will always be optimal this way.

I suggest using Ventoy (i.e. ventoy.net or https://github.com/ventoy/Ventoy/releases ; currently you would download "ventoy-1.0.99-linux.tar.gz" for use on Linux) as with that you can create a multi-boot USB stick that still functions like a regular USB stick but also can boot ISO's directly. because once Ventoy is setup on it, you just copy your Linux/Windows ISO's to the root of the USB stick (basically just copy the ISO file to the USB stick from file manager). then to boot to it, you boot to a USB stick like usual, select the ISO from the Ventoy menu and then proceed to use/install Windows or Linux like you normally would. p.s. for those who don't like Windows 11, you have the option to stick with Windows 10 past the Oct 2025 end-of-support date 'if' you use the 'IoT Enterprise LTSC 2021' version of Windows 10 (it's basically '21H2' where as standard Win10 is '22H2' but it's pretty much the same) which is supported until Jan 2032 etc. I am using that version of Windows 10 in a virtual machine on my main Linux PC and as a bonus it does not have the junk in it like the regular version does like no Microsoft Store and the start menu is nice and clean. also, it's possible to use a updated version of Windows 7, which will have security updates to October 2024 ('Simplix' which is about a 800MB file), but I heard the ones that came in October 2024 are the very last ones from Microsoft (but for the general average person Jan 2020 was the end-of-support date for Windows 7 but it was still possible to get updates afterwards through other means), so it's probably not worth using Windows 7 at this point short of very limited use situations. but Firefox ESR is still officially supported on Windows 7 until March 2025 I think as that was extended not long ago. but I did use that (Simplix) to create a updated ISO to August 2024 not long ago as the official Win7 SP1 64-bit ISO was 3.1GB but after updating that with the newest updates along with bundling DirectX/dotNET/VisualC++ stuff with it, the ISO was now 4.5GB which is what I used to install Win7 on a old computer I have for potential use of old games/software that does not work on newer Windows etc and that computer cannot run any Windows newer than Windows 7 and on that old computer gaming is not a option because the driver Linux supports on it is too old for modern standards so for gaming, Win7 is the only option on that backup computer of mine (my main PC I can play my games on Linux through Lutris and no obvious issues). but on that same PC I have Linux Mint 22.0-Xfce installed on it for general usage and ImgBurn works fine on that (although to get PlayOnLinux to start up on Mint 22 I had to install a additional thing (i.e. "apt install python3-pyasyncore") for it to start up. but since you are using a different distro it's possible you might not need to do that for PlayOnLinux to start since in your screenshot it's working as on Mint 22 the main PlayOnLinux interface simply refuses to start up until I issued that from terminal. I upgraded from Mint 21 to 22 and even from a clean install a while ago it still reacts the same way). I use the "SetupImgBurn_2.5.8.0.exe" directly already on hard drive. I typically do my stuff from that PlayOnLinux's 'Configure' icon as it allows a bit more manual control over things vs trying it from the 'Install' option on the main PlayOnLinux screen. but I would imagine the 'Install' will be okay to but I never use it personally. also, the system installed Wine should work if you prefer to use that I suspect. I just prefer PlayOnLinux since it keeps a separate Wine prefix solely for ImgBurn use (which is stored in a different location..."~/.PlayOnLinux/wineprefix/" my ImgBurn wine prefix (v6.0.1 (32-bit)) here is 4xxMB in size). but if you use the system installed Wine (which stores it's default prefix at "~/.wine") you will have to tweak it so the "ImgBurn.exe" is specifically designed to run in Windows XP mode as that's critical as Wine has defaulted to Windows 7 for a while (like on Wine v8.x and a fair amount before this) and in recent memory (I think on the current Wine v9.x series) now defaults to Windows 10 and ImgBurn will hang/not-work if you don't have Wine set to WindowsXP mode for the ImgBurn.exe specifically. this way you could leave the default wine prefix to it's usual Windows 10 mode but for ImgBurn specifically it would use Windows XP. but if I recall correctly each time you ran a program that uses default it would probably be always re-writing data to that when switching etc which is why I suggest just creating one solely for use with ImgBurn as then you don't have to worry about that stuff since it will stay completely separate and less likely to act up if you have multiple programs running from default "~/.wine" location. optionally... if you want, you can install the latest Wine from official Wine website (i.e. https://gitlab.winehq.org/wine/wine/-/wikis/Debian-Ubuntu ; follow the instructions for your specific Ubuntu version!) as I got mine installed but I don't even currently have a prefix created with it (since it wastes 1-2GB of storage space and I prefer to have separate stuff for most of my programs etc) as I am currently using the 'development' version which the newest is currently v9.20 as this gets updated roughly once a month where as the current 'stable' version would be v9.0. generally for the average person I would probably stick with the 'stable' which seems about one major release every year, usually around January. this will generally be newer than if you stick to the stuff in the Ubuntu repositories. so bottom line... I would suggest sticking with PlayOnLinux for ImgBurn since it stays separate from any potential system installed Wine stuff. p.s. if i recall correctly... say you got the more standard system installed Wine installed, once PlayOnLinux is installed, if you try to remove the system installed Wine etc, I think this will screw up PlayOnLinux. I don't remember the precise detail off the top of my head but I am pretty sure it's something along these lines. but if this happens it's still fixable as that's partially why I have not bothered to mess with my system installed Wine much even though I pretty much don't use it as PlayOnLinux uses it's own stuff and so does Lutris etc.

Sorry, I have not been active on here in a little while as I just noticed your post here on Oct 24th 2024, so I am over 3 weeks late. but I am personally using Wine v6.0.1 (32-bit) for my ImgBurn setup currently and I have no issues on Mint 21.2-Xfce, which is based on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS. my two other computers are using Mint 22.0-Xfce which is based on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS and ImgBurn starts up on those okay to. but once you got PlayOnLinux installed, you install the Wine you want from PlayOnLinux's "Tools > Manage Wine versions" screen. the one I am using would be listed on 'Wine versions (x86)' tab and on the left hand side you scroll down and select whatever Wine version you want to use and then highlight it and then in the center area will be a ">" click it and it should download and install. NOTE: I generally avoid Snap or Flatpak stuff (in fact, Snap is disabled by default on Mint but Flatpak is possible to use). what I am using is the standard software installs. p.s. I also play some games on Linux through Lutris using the current GE 8-26 (from Feb 2024) runner or even the newer 'UMU-Proton9.0-3.2' (from Oct 15th 2024). I even played around with 'Heroic Games Launcher' a bit and that works to. on Lutris I installed it with a standard ".deb" file where as Heroic Games Launcher I used the '.AppImage' file.

ALTERNATIVELY: I was just playing with 'Redream' and 'Flycast', which are Dreamcast emulators for PC etc (I am using the Linux versions but there is ones for Windows obviously to), and those work well. Redream is a little easier to setup than Flycast but both work well with the game I tested, which is the one I mentioned above (Mortal Kombat Gold, using same CDI file I burned to CD-R for real Dreamcast use). on Flycast I had to switch from 'OpenGL' to 'Vulkan' though (as frame rate etc was pretty much shot on OpenGL but Vulkan runs as expected) and on Flycast you need Dreamcast BIOS files (which are easy enough to find online). even on Windows I heard you want to select DIrectX or Vulkan over OpenGL in regards to Flycast (it seems to default to OpenGL from what I can tell). but one thing I like on Flycast is when you start up the game as normally you have to wait through the intro videos etc, while you still have to, pressing 'spacebar' basically fast-forwards it so you wait much less time and then pressing it again once you can actually play goes back to normal speed. just on a personal note... while I have not fully configured everything on these emulators for PC yet, besides the somewhat benefit of using it on real Dreamcast hardware with the real controller, depending on the game you are playing, I might prefer the emulated stuff more overall mainly because I can connect my X-Arcade dual-stick (I bought this back in the 2000's to play fighting games, primarily Mortal Kombat (series)/Killer Instinct on the MAME (arcade) emulator) to play MK: Gold which is better suited for the game than the four-button layout with the two back triggers on real Dreamcast controller. but even when it comes to random Dreamcast games through emulation I can likely just use my wireless XBox360 controller and get a very similar experience as if it was using real Dreamcast hardware. so depending on what one has for use on their PC (like a decent controller and assuming their hardware is passable for Dreamcast emulation)... using Dreamcast games through emulation on PC appears to be a solid alternative to using real Dreamcast hardware. not surprisingly graphics are generally better on PC monitor. even on my recent Dreamcast use (on the real Dreamcast hardware) I had it connected to my usual 1080p TV but using the standard yellow/white/red connection from the old days as thankfully my TV (which has a 2016 mfg date) still has support for that old connection unlike a lot of fairly recent TV's which seems to be stuck to using the modern HDMI. p.s. for those who have a more generic iGPU (like those built-in Intel GPU's that normally too weak for gaming) they might be passable on this sort of stuff given the age of Dreamcast games as it does not take a powerful GPU to run them as my 'NVIDIA 1050 Ti 4GB' GPU, which is basically 2016 GPU tech, along with a i5-3550 CPU, which is basically a good CPU back in 2012, easily handles them.

Also, I just messed around with ImgBurn with the same CDI file (Mortal Kombat Gold) and it passed a 'Verify' on the CD-R I burned with Padus DiscJuggler once I put the "pfctoc.dll" file (i.e. https://download.imgburn.com/pfctoc.zip ) into root of ImgBurn install directory on my Linux setup. but just to see what would happen after removing that file, it throws a error that it can't read the CDI file like expected. so if I do decide to burn another Dreamcast CDI file I might try ImgBurn as that should have no trouble adjusting write speed down to 8x like Padus DiscJuggler does (maybe DiscJuggler won't have this issue on Windows or older burners(?)) and I prefer ImgBurn in general. but on that Dreamcast wiki page I noticed it says, "ImgBurn is usually very reliable with burning DiscJuggler CDI files, but on rare occasions there may be incompatible discs requiring the use of the original DiscJuggler software." ; I wonder if anyone has ever actually had any issues with ImgBurn burning CDI files as the quote says 'may be'?

UPDATE: a small update to my previous comment... I was just burning a Dreamcast game on my Sep 1999 mfg date console and I can definitely say CD-RW does not work as I burned the same CDI file using Padus DiscJuggler to CD-RW disc and the console acts like the disc does not even exist. but I burn that same CDI file to a CD-R (Verbatim (the cheaper 'CMC Magnetics Corp' media code) at pretty much max speed as it took 3min10sec to burn pretty much a full CD-R) and it works.

I am a bit late... but I see that game you want (i.e. "Spirit of Speed 1937") on Archive site and you can try using Padus DiscJuggler software if you want as while I nearly exclusively use ImgBurn in general, Padus DiscJuggler is the official software for ".CDI" files which CDI files are what you need for using on real Dreamcast hardware. I was looking into this stuff a moment ago and found the last released version of Padus DiscJuggler (i.e. https://dreamcast.wiki/DiscJuggler ) on my Linux setup and it seems okay. just in some brief testing I burned a game to CD-RW just to see what my Dreamcast would do and it does not even see the CD-RW disc. I recently brought out my Dreamcast as it was collecting dust for many years as I tried one of my burned CD-R's (Mortal Kombat Gold), which I burned June 2004 on some generic 'CMC Magnetics Corp' media (as there is no brand name on the disc), and... the game still loads up but I noticed in the game it does not take long before the sound goes out in regards to punches/kicks etc but the background music is still okay. so either my copy degraded, or... it 'may' have been like that back when I first burned it. I 'may' try reburning that same game from a CDI image I found online just to see if it's any better. I tried comparing the original one I burned from June 2004 to the burned CDI image to CD-RW and ImgBurn shows for the June 2004 burned CD-R... "Size: 661,381,120 bytes". the one I just tested is... "Size: 736,954,368 bytes". even looking at basic 'data' section of the disc (not the Audio part) shows "378,216,295 bytes" on NEW disc. the June 2004 one shows... "352,110,505 bytes". I heard there was a couple of different versions of this game, so 'maybe' that's why. the file I downloaded says 'Re-release'. but I can't really say for sure. but I said screw it and decided to burn it to a Verbatim CD-R (one of the usual cheaper 'CMC Magnetics Corp' ones) at 8x (seems DiscJuggler did not take my 8x write speed setting as it appears it's burning it pretty much full speed as it only took 3min10sec to finish writing it and it's basically a full disc) on my 'Sony Optiarc 7240s' and see if that issue I had with the June 2004 copy went away and... it seems to work with no more audio missing issue with kicks/punches etc as it works as expected. so I am leaning towards that previous copy was flawed, not in burning quality but the data itself(?). TIP: from what some claim, burning Dreamcast games slow is probably a good idea. most modern-ish burners don't seem to burn CD-R's any slower than 8x though. but I most likely burned that CD-R from June 2004 on a burner I still have (Liteon 24102b) as I never had a DVD burner until I think 2005-2006. p.s. my console has to be one of the earlier models as it's got a Sep 1999 mfg date on it as the console was released Sep 9th 1999 here in USA (I noticed the console does not seem to keep the data you setup for long as powering it off for not long and back on seems to ask to set date again etc). I most likely bought mine in 1999 or 2000 at the latest.

While it seems madFLAC is pretty standard with ImgBurn, while not as convenient, I use Foobar2000 to convert FLAC back to standard WAV temporarily anytime I want to burn a standard Audio CD. but on Linux it appears I don't have much choice as, at least to my knowledge, madFLAC can't be setup on ImgBurn on Linux. so my ImgBurn is just on a basic installation which it can directly use WAV files without issue. so I guess the general point is... even if you can't get any special stuff (madFLAC etc) working with ImgBurn, as long as ImgBurn installs and it's basic function works, you can do what I do to create a standard Audio CD with ImgBurn.

So what I was saying does not really apply to you or you to me since yours are from a random manufacturer as they might only overburn a minute or so over the usual 80min limit, but it's hard to say for sure without testing as we only know you can't do '82:26:49'. because I imagine with the 'CMC Magnetics Corp' how far one can actually overburn will probably vary from manufacturer to manufacturer. so in that case only way I can know the rough cut off point of mine in particular is to waste a CD-R and say try burning 82minute30sec or more just to see if it works or not as if not as when playing I can get a rough idea of where the cut off point is. but thanks for the info as I did not expect to get a reply given the age of this post and you only had one post until now

My guess is I won't get a reply from this user given the age of the post. but I am curious as to whats the specific brand those CD-R's? ; because if they are Verbatim I am reasonably confident you can go to at least 82:14:66 (82min15sec) and have a successful overburn and music will play without the clicking issue you experienced at the end of the standard music CD-R as I noticed in the past when I overburn too far on other random CD-R's they react the same, at least in some of my CD players if I recall correctly. but the Verbatim (CMC Magnetics Corp) 80min CD-R I have are easily the furthest I overburned successfully as I would guesstimate on any random brand of CD-R's nowadays you can probably get at least 30sec to maybe a minute or so over the 80min mark, but much beyond that your rolling-the-dice and it could easily fail. so when I got 2min15sec over successfully I was a little surprised since prior to that happening I figured 1min15sec to 1min30sec was pushing it really hard on any random CD-R brand. but if yours is Verbatim brand that probably means I am very close to the failure point (from my best guess without knowing the exact cut off point) as 82:14:66 works but your 82:26:49 fails, which probably means the overburn failure point is somewhere between 2min15sec to 2min26sec over the usual 80min normal limit. it's possible I could try pushing over the 2min15sec limit to maybe 2min20sec at some point in the future but I only burn standard Audio CD's occasionally and getting a CD-R to very close to say 2min20sec over the 80min limit might not always occur as I mainly use overburning so if I go a little over the 80min limit I don't have to remove any songs. who knows, if I did not mind wasting a CD-R I could say try burning 2min30sec over the usual 80min limit (so about 82min30sec), and assuming it fails, I could probably put it into a CD player and watch the time on the last song and see at what seconds left in that song it fails and from there I should be able to get a very close estimate as to the true limit of it by subtracting the time difference of when it failed to where it should have finished and then be slightly conservative from there. so for example... say the song playing failed at the 82min23sec mark (as the CD player starts the clicking and gets out of whack), which if it was 82min30sec that means it would have failed with about 7 seconds to go on the last song before it stopped normally, which that probably means I would have to have it so it's even less than that for the CD-R to close etc from a rough guess so the CD player does not do the clicking issue and will stop like is normally expected in a normally functioning CD-R. p.s. I never tried the truncate option though since in my case ill always either overburn (like if it's a bit past 80min) or make sure it will fit within the usual 80min limit by removing song(s).

There are other methods to but that one seems to be the easiest/quickest. but looking online a moment ago I see... https://www.windowscentral.com/how-set-windows-11-without-microsoft-account ; 'Method 1' is what I used months ago. but there 'Method 2' is pretty much same example I used but they just typed in 'admin' instead of the 'no at thankyou dot com' stuff I used. but you can see the pictures there on what it looks like as that's basically what it looked like when I did it. so I am starting to think if you can pretty much type anything there besides a real account and it will error out and allow local account creation given they used 'admin'.

Sorry for the late reply as I just noticed your post here a week later. anyways, I took a quick look online and I think I found the Reddit post you mentioned which is about 5 months ago. when I did my HWID stuff it was late October 2023. so less than 5 months ago when I did the HWID activation. but for kicks I installed Windows 10 in a fresh QEMU/KVM VM a moment ago. then checked activation status, which is not activated as expected, then I tried that HWID method and... it worked ; you can clearly see it's activated... 'Activation Windows is activated with a digital license'. before that it was in red saying it was not activated etc. but just to make sure the HWID activation method also still works on Win11, I tried Windows 11 on a fresh VM a moment ago and checked activation status and said not activated. then I ran the HWID method and it shows 'Windows is activated with a digital license'. just to do one last test to confirm it lasts... I completely deleted the VM's virtual hard drive and created one fresh, but used the same UUID when it was activated a moment ago on the previous VM's virtual hard drive, and... it still worked as you install Win11, skip over the activation part when it asks, then once you reach the desktop I checked activation status and it's activated with no further action needed on my end. so in short... that HWID still works on Win10/11. TIP: to dodge Microsoft's 'forced' Microsoft account junk just type in 'no at thankyou dot com' (with 'at' being '@' and 'dot' being '.') and then enter any random password (it does not matter what it is and you don't even need to remember it) and it will error shortly after that and allow a local account instead (which you then create with your own password like usual which you want to remember) as I saw that on another site and heard it worked but I never tried that until now and it worked exactly as they said.

That must be a older Windows 10 ISO as they have been too big to fit onto a standard 4.7GB for years now. you are better off setting up a bootable USB stick, 8GB will work. then just get the latest official ISO from Microsoft's website or use the Media Creation Tool etc.

Here is the OP's log.txt for those who don't want to download it... I 20:50:22 ImgBurn Version 2.5.8.0 started! I 20:50:22 Microsoft Windows 8 Core x64 Edition (6.2, Build 9200) I 20:50:22 Total Physical Memory: 33,480,684 KiB - Available: 23,953,008 KiB I 20:50:22 Initialising SPTI... I 20:50:22 Searching for SCSI / ATAPI devices... I 20:50:22 -> Drive 1 - Info: HL-DT-ST BD-RE BP60NB10 1.02 (F:) (USB 2.0) I 20:50:22 -> Drive 2 - Info: ELBY CLONEDRIVE 1.4 (E:) (SCSI) I 20:50:22 Found 1 BD-ROM/HD DVD-ROM and 1 BD-RE XL! I 20:51:55 Operation Started! I 20:51:55 Source Device: [0:0:0] HL-DT-ST BD-RE BP60NB10 1.02 (F:) (USB) I 20:51:55 Source Media Type: CD-ROM I 20:51:55 Source Media Supported Read Speeds: 4x, 10x, 16x, 20x, 24x I 20:51:55 Source Media Supported Write Speeds: 24x I 20:51:55 Source Media Sectors: 333,000 I 20:51:55 Source Media Size: 783,216,000 bytes I 20:51:55 Source Media Volume Identifier: AIR_ALL_ORANGE I 20:51:55 Source Media File System(s): ISO9660 (Bootable), Joliet I 20:51:55 Read Speed (Data/Audio): MAX / 8x I 20:51:55 Destination File: D:\AIR_ALL_ORANGE.BIN I 20:51:55 Destination Free Space: 861,445,029,888 Bytes (841,254,912.00 KiB) (821,538.00 MiB) (802.28 GiB) I 20:51:55 Destination File System: EXFAT I 20:51:55 File Splitting: Auto I think I had a similar issue in the past with ImgBurn hanging on the analyzing tracks part. but in my case it was when reading a CD-RW disc, which those discs were pretty much faulty as once I got different ones it seemed to be okay after that on same drive. off the top of my head... try another CD/DVD reader if possible on that same CD as it could be possible your current reader has trouble reading it and may work okay on other drives.

Windows 10 is officially supported until Oct 2025. Windows 11 will run on hardware that's not officially supported but requires a bit of extra effort to install. I also run Linux Mint (currently 21.2-Xfce) on my machines. in fact, I even run Windows 11 (and it's "activated" (the method I used to activate ('massgrave github' ; using 'HWID', which is the best) works on Win10/Win11)) in a QEMU/KVM virtual machine on my i5-3550 CPU which is not even officially supported and it works fine using official Windows 11 ISO straight from Microsoft. you can see QEMU/KVM emulates TPM v2.0. but I agree QEMU/KVM feels lighter than VirtualBox. side note: I noticed the 'activation' of Win10/11 using certain software seems to tie the activation to the QEMU/KVM's UUID of the virtual machines virtual HDD setup. because I noticed if I wipe it and start fresh, the activation is disabled. but if I restore the same UUID when I activated it, the activation is automatic with no further interaction needed as you just install Windows like usual and skip the key part etc during setup and once on the desktop you will notice it's automatically activated. but if I change the UUID of the virtual machine, like when you start a fresh one, the previous activation will no longer work. so it's easy enough to just use the same UUID in the future. on a real machine you would not have to worry about that UUID stuff if you installed Win11 directly on real hardware and activated it. even when it comes to file sharing between my real PC and the QEMU/KVM virtual machine I just setup a Samba share on my main Mint machine and then you can access it from the Win11 virtual machine etc. but at least on my i5-3550 CPU, you can't really expect native level performance when using a virtual machine (but performance is passable, especially if you don't plan on using it too much). but I generally don't use Windows, but it's nice to have on the rarer occasion where I need it in which case I use the VM. but generally the small amount of Windows software and limited amount of games I play all work on Linux Mint like Foobar2000/ImgBurn etc. also, you mentioned 'GPU passthrough'. while I never used this personally, from what I read, it seems you can only use it if you have a spare GPU that you are currently not using on Mint, which I can't imagine most people have (I don't). but given the direction things are going with Windows with Windows 11 etc I am glad I dumped Windows for Linux a little over 5 years ago now on my primary desktop PC as Mint is just more snappy without all of the bloat that runs on Windows. this is especially obvious the less CPU power your computer has as on a backup laptop I have with a under powered CPU (AMD E-300) Mint becomes usable noticeably faster than Windows does after booting up and installing updates on Mint is quicker to and you don't have to deal with forced reboots etc on Mint as with Mint you generally don't have to reboot after updates short of pretty much kernel ones or, if you have a NVIDIA GPU using the proper proprietary NVIDIA driver. even then it lets you choose when to reboot. in fact, on Linux Mint 21.2-Xfce I currently have my all-time record uptime of 180 days and counting (as I have not rebooted in over 180 days now on my primary use PC). so basically it will be a half of year without a reboot in about 3 days from now. p.s. I was reading articles recently that shows that, with Win11 24H2 in the near future, will REQUIRE a certain CPU instruction, which on Intel CPU's basically means you need a CPU that supports 'SSE4.2' otherwise it flat out won't work. still, unless your CPU is fairly ancient it will still work as my i5-3550 should work as it supports SSE4.2 and it's from the year 2012 and I think Intel CPU's older than mine still have SSE4.2. on the AMD side of things I think they go back even further to something like 2006-2007 etc. basically, in short, as long as your CPU is not too old Win11 should continue to work for the foreseeable future.

Yeah, I get eventually drives that read optical media will be more difficult to come by. but at least currently I would say we should be safe for at least another 10+ years from now. because I figure as long as the SATA connection standard remains common in desktop computers we should be safe for a while because even if they say stopped making optical drives in 5-10 years time, it will be a quite a while after that before finding a optical drive will be a problem. but for more general backup... yeah, quicker storage is preferable like HDD's etc as that's what I do for most of my data backup. DVD backup would be largely for family photos/videos and the like, which is much more limited. Fair enough as there are definitely some advantages there. I would say my main thing is DVD's are a bit more time proven and it's much easier to find a drive that can read DVD's unlike BluRay and drives are much cheaper that can read DVD to. even with longevity... quality DVD recordable discs will most likely last atleast decades given I have some around 15 years old with no real signs of degradation as I figure if they are still pretty much like how when I burned them after 15 years or so, they will likely remain reliable for decades to come. because when it comes to disc longevity... the main thing is as long as they can last a large portion of someones life span or so as if they pass this standard, I think one could argue that's what matters most. so if, for example, a DVD lasts 50-100 years and Bluray say lasts say double that, while good in paper, in real world it probably won't matter and this assume we still have drives that can read this stuff in 50-100+ years etc, which I figure by then this stuff might be much harder to come by. but purely from discs point of view... I get your point with $1 each at 25GB for BD-R vs $0.20-0.30 for DVD's 4.7GB (so roughly 14.1GB to 23.5GB per $1 or so) and it's more convenient/faster transfer speeds on BluRay. I guess a lot of it comes back to how much higher importance data one has to backup and how much up front costs someone is willing to pay. because if one has many TB's then DVD's really start to lose their appeal just from a practical point of view. but if you only have say hundreds of GB's or so, then it's a option.

While not bad, personally I would not rely on that too much as since SSD is basically a memory chip. so if it does fail, it can be sudden. that's why I prefer regular hard drives over SSD for long term storage for general backup purposes of most things. another bonus with optical media is one can't accidentally delete anything. I use CD-R's for creating standard Audio CD's (maybe for a very small amount of data backup in addition to DVD-R/+R). so I guess I should have said CD-R for standard Audio CD's and DVD for a smaller amount of higher importance data backup is my general thing.

I use optical media for backup purposes, not for general usage. helps keep wear on the drive less this way and it's not like one really need to use CD/DVD etc much nowadays besides data backup anyways given one can get plenty of hard drive space for reasonably cheap for quite some time now. p.s. if you wanted you could say make a single uncompressed rar/zip file with a bunch of smaller files if you wanted. but I guess it depends on how small and how many as to whether it might be worth doing that or not. like if it's a bunch of smaller txt files, I would probably create a single '.7z' file with compression here. but if the files are not too small and you don't have tons of them, just burn them to CD/DVD straight up.

??? ; I am not using Steam Deck (which I am aware is Linux based). I have a standard desktop PC (ones that normally run Windows) and simply installed Linux to it (in my case Mint 21.2-Xfce as I wiped the boot drive and I only run Mint now as I have been on Mint for nearly 5 years now as in Jan 2024 it will be 5 years since I dumped Windows for Linux (I pretty much don't use Windows anymore)) which is completely free and a small tweak to ImgBurn and it can see my standard desktop sized CD/DVD burners without issue (but it should work fine with a external USB burner to I would assume, although the general word is desktop burners are better than laptop sized burners).

From a quick look it appears that's pretty much using 'Wine', which is basically Linux software that allows some Windows program to run on it Linux based OS's. Wine (winehq.org ; although I got my ImgBurn setup through PlayOnLinux but it's still using a Wine variation) is basically what I am using on my desktop Linux computers to get ImgBurn working. but I still got to adjust some options in ImgBurn for it to see my CD/DVD burners. but connecting a DVD burner (in your first link) to a smart phone actually works? ; because if yours works without any further configuration of Wine it must be different from desktop Linux as that requires changes to ImgBurn settings for it to see ones DVD burner etc. but thanks for the info

Personally... I think desktop PC's are far better than smart phones as everything is superior on those besides portability. even if I were to go with portability on some level, I would still default to a laptop since at least it's a proper computer where as smart phones are watered down online experience as smart phones are okay for quick/limited use, but if I am going to be online for any length of time, which is typically the case for me, a desktop is my preferred way by-far. but I guess if a persons primary concern is social media (or the like), and is heavily into portability/less weight, a smart phone is probably good enough for these kinds of users. which probably accounts for a lot of people nowadays as desktop/laptops ain't as popular as they used to be. but I definitely won't be dumping a desktop as it's just the best way to experience the internet and typing is much faster on these as on a smart phone/laptop it's a bit of a chore. just some thoughts

If you are trying to burn a standard Audio CD with ImgBurn, I suggest doing what I do, which is to temporarily convert your FLAC back to standard WAV files (i.e. 16/44.1) with Foobar2000 (or whatever software you prefer), burn your Audio CD like usual through ImgBurn using these standard WAV files, and then delete the WAV files once done and keep your FLAC for long term storage like usual. that might not be super convenient but unless you are burning a lot of CD's it's a good enough work-around and then you don't have to worry about any random errors like that. p.s. that's what I have been doing on Linux when using ImgBurn to burn standard Audio CD's once in a while.

When burning standard audio CD's I would not worry too much about the quality of the CD-R media itself. I would be more concerned with using a lossless audio source (i.e. FLAC). if you are burning from MP3's to standard Audio CD, all the more reason not to worry about the quality of the CD-R media. like you generally want a lossless audio source to burn a standard audio CD. so FLAC etc is optimal and just keep the FLAC files as this way even if your standard Audio CD acts up in the future it's really easy to re-burn to CD-R. p.s. personally... I pretty much only use CD-R media for burning a occasional standard Audio CD as I rarely use it for general data backup as for general data backup I use DVD recordable media (Verbatim/TY(Taiyo Yuden)).

Unless things changed, back when I overburned XBox360 games to Verbatim DVD+R DL discs I had to have a special firmware. I still have that drive and the firmware flashed to it (Liteon iHAS-324B) as it's the reason I bought that drive in the first place (although I use it for general burning nowadays). I 'think' there are some newer drives than what I have that can overburn though, although I can't tell you what they are off the top of my head. but my XBox360 collects dust for years now as I don't think I have used that on a semi-regular basis in probably around 10 years. I still have about eight Verbatim 2.4x DVD+R DL discs from those days collecting dust. p.s. some XBox360 games can be played on a PC using the 'Xenia' emulator.