Burning CD's on OS X and Ubuntu Linux

The previous post discussed a problem with the way OS X handles splitting large files into smaller and more digestible chunks...namely, it wouldn't.

There's a second bit that bothers me in creating DVD archives of data on the Mac. The process of burning the CD isn't quite as intuitive as it should be.

Ubuntu (Linux) made this very simple. I pop in a CD, open a folder for the CD-RW volume (or DVD-writable volume), open another window in the file manager to locate the files I want to burn, then drag them to the CD window. It populates the window with the files as if I'm copying any other content to or from a network or local volume. When I have the files I want burned all nice and tidy, I click on "Write to Disc", and Ubuntu merrily burns the file for me.

In OS X, I pop in the DVD blank, a window pops up from Finder asking me what I want to do with it. I tell it to Open Finder. Unfortunately if I already have a folder open, as is normal for me since have a window showing the files I want to burn, the dialog disappears and you see in the sidebar that a blank CD has been mounted. Not a big issue, but in my workflow that's annoying. Minor, though.

I open another window to the blank CD. I drag a file from the files-to-burn to the blank DVD image. The Finder window is filled with...aliases.

Aliases are little files that basically point to another "actual" file. It's a small placeholder...you can have a tiny alias, or many of them, pointing to an actual location on your hard drive to make it more convenient to find other folders or programs without copying the whole thing to a new location or have multiple copies floating around.

My problem is that I'm looking at these tiny aliases, just a few kilobytes each, thinking...I don't want to burn a CD of alias files. I want the actual files. When I look at the file sizes, the aliases are tiny...how much space is there left on the disc? If you look at the bottom of the window there is a subtle update on how much space is left on the disc...took me awhile to notice that. Annoying! It simply isn't consistent in the display of information to the user (you look at the directory listing, it's a fraction of the 4.7 gig you're supposed to have on the volume...only you have 200 meg left in which to save things?)

Finder is apparently resolving the aliases to the actual files when you tell it to burn the disc.

I suppose this isn't so bad if you're just accustomed to the Mac way of doing things, but it still isn't intuitive. This type of behavior, this type of need for the user to adapt to the Mac, that's unusual. Usually the Mac is way ahead of the curve in protecting the user from having to puzzle things out, and strangely enough (is the devil wearing a jacket?) Ubuntu Linux is ahead of the curve in intuitiveness in burning discs!

So I have a couple "Yay, Ubuntu!" sentiments today. I don't often get to say that, so when it does happen I acknowledge it.

Of course, these were way ahead of Windows, where last I knew you still had to download third-party software to burn discs. Both Ubuntu and OS X burn disks (and can mount them and do various operations on disk images) from the interface natively. Maybe things will change with Windows 7 or Vista had features I'm unaware of, but it's 2009...get with the program already, Microsoft.