Disc burning under Linux is dominated by one application: K3b. It's favoured by novices and power users alike, so much so that even the staunchest Gnome fans sometimes find themselves reaching for the KDE burning tool.

Nero, then, has a tough road ahead if it wants to win over Linux users, especially as its product is closed source and commercial. Linux and proprietary software don't often make for happy bedfellows, and to succeed, a closed product has to offer something spectacular over the open source competition - some massive feature to tempt fans of free software.

Luckily for Nero, its latest release for Linux has that massive feature: Blu-ray and HD DVD support. This is the first graphical burning tool to support the new disc formats, immediately boosting it ahead of K3b on the feature front, although work is underway on Linux's command-line tools.

Nero offers version 3 as a week-long trial version download from its website - this can be unlocked into a full release by buying a serial number for €20 (£13).

The supported distributions include Fedora 4, RHEL 4, SUSE 10.0, Debian 3.1 and Ubuntu 5.10 (or newer versions of these distros), although as the packages are supplied in both RPM and .deb format, you should be able to coerce it into running on other distributions.

Nero proudly claims that its Linux product provides the same interface and feature set as Burning ROM 7 for Windows. For new Linux convertees seeking out familiar-looking software, this is an excellent strength, and thankfully the app is built around Gtk so it fits in well with modern desktops.

All too often we've seen commercial Linux programs that use Motif or some other chunky widget set that looks totally alien under KDE and Gnome.

Burn baby burn

When started, Nero pops up a New Compilation dialog that sets up the burning session: choose the type of disc, give it a label and you're ready to go. Usefully, Nero lets you tweak various filesystem settings such as Joliet or Rock Ridge support, and go beyond the limits of ISO 9660.

Our only gripe here is that you can't fine-tune the write speed - you're limited to your drive's maximum setting, which is frustrating if you're using cheap media or want a slow burn to be on the safe side.