Unix Tip: Sharing DVD drives
By Sandra Henry-Stocker
While only the newer Sun systems and higher-end PCs today are equipped with DVD drives, application software is beginning to arrive on DVDs because of the tremendous increase in storage capacity. Your typical CD holds about 700 MB of data. That was a lot of data when system disks were only a couple of gigabytes in size. DVDs, on the other hand, may hold 4.3 or 4.7 GB -- and that's just a starting point. If the multi-layer storage capacity of DVDs is ever fully employed, DVDs will hold nearly 16 GB of data. With less overhead for data integrity and more area, it's no wonder that Solaris is being shipped on DVDs only.
So what do you do if you need to install software that is only available on a DVD on a system which has only a CD drive? One answer is to mount and share the DVD from a system with a DVD reader. Since I had to do that just last week, I'll run through the steps in today's column.
While only the newer Sun systems and higher-end PCs today are equipped with DVD drives, application software is beginning to arrive on DVDs because of the tremendous increase in storage capacity. Your typical CD holds about 700 MB of data. That was a lot of data when system disks were only a couple of gigabytes in size. DVDs, on the other hand, may hold 4.3 or 4.7 GB -- and that's just a starting point. If the multi-layer storage capacity of DVDs is ever fully employed, DVDs will hold nearly 16 GB of data. With less overhead for data integrity and more area, it's no wonder that Solaris is being shipped on DVDs only.
So what do you do if you need to install software that is only available on a DVD on a system which has only a CD drive? One answer is to mount and share the DVD from a system with a DVD reader. Since I had to do that just last week, I'll run through the steps in today's column.
posted by ITworld Editors at 6:04 AM
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