Why GnomeBaker and Brasero Aren't Standard on Gnome

When the Ubuntu devs decided to ship Brasero with 8.04LTS, the users thundered with applause. Everyone, it seems, wants a Nero-style application for the desktop. Why is that? More pointedly, why does Gnome choose not to ship a CD-burning application as part of the desktop? The answer to that question says a lot about how Gnome is designed to be used.

Let's look at some of the standard uses of Brasero and see how we accomplish the sale task without it in Gnome.

Easy Task: Write a prepared .iso file to a CD or DVD.

In Brasero

1. Open Brasero
2. Choose "Burn Image"
3. Click on "Path"
4. Navigate to and choose .iso file
5. Click "Burn"

In Gnome

1. Open a file browser window
2. Navigate to file
3. Right-click the file and choose "Write to Disk"
4. Click "Write"

While these two procedures don't seem very different from each other, you often start at step three of the Gnome way because you are already looking at the file you want to burn. You'll look at the file and say to yourself "I want to make a copy of this." If you know that double-click means "open" in Gnome and right-click means "do something else to a file," this method is the intuitive one.

Medium Task: Create a data CD

In Brasero

1. Open Brasero
2. Click "Data Project"
3. Drag and drop files or use the chooser.
4. Click Project > Burn
5. Click "Burn"

In Gnome

1. Insert a blank disk or choose Places > CD/DVD creator
2. Drag and drop files
3. Click "Write to disk"
4. Click "Write"

Again, these don't look very different on the surface until you realize that you get #1 for free by inserting the CD (which you need to do in any case). The work flow is intuitive: Insert a blank CD and choose what to put on it.

Difficult Task: Create an audio CD from OGG or MP3 files.

In Brasero

1. Open Brasero
2. Choose "Audio project"
3. Navigate to the audio files
4. Drag and drop the files
5. Click "Burn"
6. Click "Burn" again

In Gnome

1. Open Rhythmbox
2. Create a new playlist
3. Filter the files you want
4. Drag and drop the files
   
5. Right click the playlist and choose "Create audio CD"
6. Click "Create"

This is arguably a draw, but I'm going to argue that RB, being a jukebox application, is probably more efficient at finding your music than a multi-pane browser is. It's probably up to taste.

Bonus Task #1: Copy a disk

In Brasero

1. Open Brasero
2. Choose "Disk copy"
3. Choose "Copy"

In Gnome

1. Go to Places > Computer
2. Right-click on the CD and choose "Copy disk"
3. Click "Write"

This is probably the least intuitive Gnome method so far, but it was still exactly where I expected it to be (note: I've never attempted this task before and I doubt many average users would ever do it). I do wish that there were a menu option under "File" when the CD directory opens (automatically in Gnome) to copy the disk. Given the lack of a drive-centric view in *nix, though, I think that the method used is the most consistent ideologically.

Bonus Task #2: Create a new .iso image

The steps for both methods are exactly the same as creating a data CD (above), except that the user needs to choose "File image" instead of the drive in the "Write disk to" field.

Conclusion

Brasero has four options for creating CD/DVD projects. It contains nothing that standard Gnome can't do in the same number or fewer steps or much more easily.

Why do so many users want Brasero, then? Nero-itis. That's the rational answer. Tell me if you have another reason or if there's something that Brasero (or even the vaunted K3B) does better than Gnome apps do.