Xubuntu 20.10(?) I think.

I went to college and no longer had any computers with disk drives or a need for one, so I haven’t used many since.

However, I do want to start backing up old VHS tapes my family has onto disks, and burn some of our favorite online movies/shows onto disks so we can watch them if the internet goes down.

I rip music to play in the car for my kids. Mostly mix tracks they like.

Probably some Linux iso before booting from USB became the default. I still remember the drama about the Ubuntu ISO outgrowing the 700MB of a CD.

I can't even remember the last thing I burned, had to have been over 10 years ago and it was likely install media for some Linux distro. I haven't had a functional audio CD player in a very long time.

I did, however, rip a couple audio discs a few months ago. I was surprised that my USB disc drive still functioned.

edit: just read the other comments and I find it hilarious how almost everyone burned some distro install media

I dont burn, I rip with MakeMKV, reencode with ffmpeg using a denoise filter and svtav1 with strong compression.

That reduces filesize to about ¼ or less and makes it shareable with anyone, many times.

I love digital media

I was doing a bit of cleaning recently and came across a binder/collection of burned DVDs and PS2 games. The kids were young and did a lot of travel by car, which had DVD players strapped to the front head rests. I had a bunch of stuff ready like anime like Inuyasha, Ghibli, Avatar TLA, home videos, VCDs, etc. I even found my old bare bones SATA DVD player that was stripped out of the PC, and a new pack of blank DVDs too. I bought a USB enclosure and the darned thing still works perfectly on my current Linux machine.

My summer mix '08

Copied few cd's for my car stereo last spring. Mp3 player functionality is bit cruddy and I can't be bothered with phoen and aux cable all the time.

I'm not sure, it was over a decade ago. I think it might have been some game I got as an iso that detected my virtual drive. Either that or a Linux image.

It was in like 2006. A dvd rw full of mp3s to play on my portable dvd player that could decode all the useful codecs.

I burned a Blu-ray a few years back just to supplement some of our encrypted Google Drive backups with copies that would be more accessible in case of my demise, or physically grabbable in case of disaster. I know they won't last forever, but if Drive shut down on the same day my local copies failed at least I have an option.

Otherwise, I haven't used physical media in years. I got the 4K LOTR set when it came out and tried to use it, but it ended up being easier to just pirate the rips like anything else.

Burned a handful of DVDs a couple years ago, as backup of photos I took. Not the most convenient, but I actually do like having an album of discs with the dates written on them. Reliving memories this way hits completely different than browsing a directory tree

I burnt a freedvdboot disc yesterday to flash a freemcboot memory card for my PS2.

That's the first time I've burnt a disc since I chipped my PS1 in ~2018

2018/2019 map update for a 2003 Mercedes. Didn't work though, probably bad optical drive or something.

oh man. totally don't remember. I wish they were more robust and lasted longer as there is tons I would do if it was less common for them to die when sitting around.

I burned SM64 to a cd the other day because I was testing the psx port (doesn't work on real hardware yet). I use optical media all the time.

PS2 games.

Last burned a PS4 jailbreak bluray 😏

the last time I burned a disk was probably almost 9 years ago now. It was Ubuntu server because at the time I had the concept of "well I should have a hard install source in case I need to do a full reinstall. I dropped that mentality almost instantly though as I realized that it was better for me to just do backups because there was way too much contents for a DVD and I didn't wanna have to reconfigure if it messed up.

I was debating just now burning a DBAN disk just to use the ancient HP I recovered to wipe old IDE hard disks.

That idea broke down when when I realized that the ribbon connector was actual floppy and there was no IDE connector.

It broke down further when I tested the optical drive with another disk to see if I could stubbornly use it with a USB IDE adapter. The drive didn't seem to spin up and I'm not wasting my time burning a drive when I have other options.

I finally grabbed a Linux Mint live USB and another computer. I'm supposedly running shred on the drive, but I forgot to include output so I'll just know when I get back in to work Monday. Top does say shred is using processor cycles, so I guess it's fine.

Microsoft exchange install media back in like 2011.

Stock windows ISO, for work.

No idea, but probably Ubuntu ~15 years ago

Pretty sure the last one was a bootleg copy of the original Taken movie - a friend had a digital copy and easiest way to play it on the TV was with a DVD

Woulda been while it was still in theaters, circa 2008.

made a beatles mixtape.. all songs that didn’t get radio play.
tried to do gapless playback but it fucked up.
now i use usb drives or hard drives

A game for PC engine.

No idea, probably XP.
I use readers but don't burn media anymore, although it's good for long-term storage.

Pretty sure it was MacOS install media. Probably a decade ago or so.

It has been so long that recently I borrowed a portable DVD drive to extract auto diagnostic software, completely forgetting I have a laptop with a DVD drive.

Dvd (+/-)r for an Xbox 360. I don't personally use the media often, but I do like blessing friends if they ask.

About 6-7 years ago. I had a friend who still had some files on a 5-1/4 floppy. I kept an old Win95 PC specifically with a bunch of old drive types and a DVD burner, so I could rescue old files & move them to DVD. Sadly, that PC stopped booting about 2 years ago. I did consider trying to resurrect it, but neither of my current PCs even have a built-in DVD drive, so I think it's safe to say that moving files to DVD isn't moving the files forward enough anymore.

Probably me trying to find the right Dreamcast game file a few weeks ago to burn to CD because I saw on a forum that you can supposedly play it without needing the maraca controllers. The burn worked, but the game didn't, not even using the utopia disc I burned about a month ago. So, I probably messed up.

Hey kids! Pirating is cool, right? Who here likes to pirate, my friends? /s

I bought an external DVD burner and a small pack of DVDs in 2023. Pretty sure I was burning gparted or some other recovery type LiveCD. It was some sort of Hail Mary on a retro project, or something.

But yeah, optical media bad.

I don't think I ever burned a DVD (did rip some), but was making copies of my CDs for use in my car up to about 2010 before I got into the mp3 player game. Then it was just ripping. Still would be ripping, but no longer have a drive for that. That computer ate it a few years ago. I should have been more proactive. Maybe will borrow the one from work that has a Jimmy Buffet disc in it.

Last CD was probably back in 2011 and was Rise Against - Appeal to Reason and the last game I burned was probably back in 2009 and was Kingdom hearts 2. Have moved on to having “backups” on my HDD or getting them on Steam.