To save confusion: this is not a tutorial of how to create a DVD copy of an existing DVD, but a short
tutorial of how to burn data to a DVD. DVD copying will be included in another article.
All this info is based on my Asus DRW-1604P, but should work with all DVD-writers.
DVD burning on Linux is easy ... very easy. There is a super tool called dvd+rw-tools (website), which focuses on "things like backup, archiving, data exchange".
DVD writing is somewhat different to CD writing. Each time your burn is it either as a new DVD image, or a multi-session track which gets burned after the last one. There is no need to first format DVD's either (except apparently for Virgin DVD+RW media). All you do is throw in your blank DVD-W / DVD-RW, and issue a very simple command, using the few tools that are provided by dvd+rw-tools:
growisofs -Z /dev/dvd -R -J /some/files
This will take your files, and use mkisofs to create an iso "on the fly" while burning it to your DVD. The option "-Z" tells it to start at the beginning. The -J and -R flags tell cdrecord to use the Rockridge and Juliet extensions when burning (supporting things like long filenames etc).
growisofs -M /dev/dvd -R -J /more/files
The software will automatically search for the last track written to the DVD, and append the new track to it.
growisofs -Z /dev/dvd=file.iso
This will burn an .iso file to a DVD
Ok, I know this wasn't really a tutorial, however on the website http://fy.chalmers.se/~appro/linux/DVD+RW/ there is a lot of related documentation regarding extra options, and troubleshooting if something should not work like you expect.
If you happen to get something like the following error messages:
bash-2.05b# growisofs -Z /dev/dvd -J -R files.test
Executing 'mkisofs -J -R file.test | builtin_dd of=/dev/dvd obs=32k seek=0'
/dev/dvd: "Current Write Speed" is 2.5x1385KBps.
:-( unable to WRITE@LBA=0h: Input/output error
:-( write failed: Input/output error
.. which is exactly what I had with my linux-2.6.10 kernel, turn off IDE-SCSI emulation! It seems horribly broken. You do not need it for burning to DVD's.