This is a rather non-specific question: Will CD writing quality be effected if the machine is doing other tasks? Of course the answer is "it depends", but here's what I'm considering:
A few of my Debian machines are old MS Windows hand-me-downs. I've been offered another (they just bought a new machine because the old one was crashing in Windows all the time). But, this time I want to give it back with Debian installed. They are not ready for Linux on the desktop, but said that they would be willing to have a linux machine they could use for burning CDs. I, on the other hand, would rather give them a NAT (masq) and firewall machine and let them put their XP machine on the protected internal LAN for all the obvious reasons. I'd rather do that than add a second NIC to the XP machine. Linux is good for this, and frankly, I think this might be a good way to get Linux into the homes of Windows users that would not consider Linux otherwise. Anyway, the machine in question is only a few years old -- A PIII 450Mhz w/ 256MB. The CD-R installed in that machine is a SCSI drive (8x burn speed). Now, they don't want the NAT machine because of the worry that if the machine is doing other things (like fetching mail) that it will effect the quality of CD writing. So my simple question is: See any reason this machine can't be both a NAT/firewall/fetchmail machine and burn CDs without errors? My guess that would not be a problem, especially since the drive is SCSI. They also have a new 48x (sure beats 8x) CD-R IDE on order. I wonder how that will work, also. I'm not looking for any hard answers. But I don't want to waste my time building the NAT/firewall if all we end up with is a machine that sits there ready to burn CDs. I guess am looking for people that have a similar setup -- that will help convince my friend that this is a good way to set up the machine. Thanks, -- Bill Moseley mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
