The Burninator burninates without equal.

The Burninator is a simple and very useful (linux/bsd/*nix only) application that finds the best fit to DVD (or other media) for files within the current directory (including subdirectories). It then burns them, compares the results and, if successful, deletes or moves the successfully burned files. It does this repeatedly until there is no more to burn. It is very useful for offlining large quantities of data. In addition to burning, it also burns a .index file containing a list of burned files (for easy jukebox media indexing) and offers a certain amount of flexibility through program arguments:

Usage: org.benow.burninate.Burninator [args]
        -h,--help Print this help message.
        --device  DVD device to burn from (default: /dev/dvd)
        --mount  DVD mount point to use (default: /mnt/cdrom)
        --size  Media capacity, in bytes (default: 4698270000)
        --copies   Burn this many copies of the files (default: 1) 
        --nuke  Automatically delete successfully burned files. (otherwise, moves to ./offline/ directory) 
        --quiet  Don't spew so much useless crap

It is part of the util project, but can also be downloaded as a seperate executable jar.

To invoke the jar, try the following

$ cd /dir/to/files
$ java -jar /path/to/benow-burninator.jar [args]

or create a burninator invocation script

$ echo "java -jar /path/to/benow-burninator.jar \$*" > burninate
$ chmod +x burninate
$ sudo mv burninate /usr/bin
$ cd /dir/to/files
$ burninate --quiet

The source is included in the jar. If you do have to modify it, I'd like to know what you changed, so others may benefit.

Troubleshooting
If you are finding that it is having trouble mounting the cdrom, you probably don't have permission. You want to edit your /etc/fstab (sudo gedit /etc/fstab) and ensure there is a user in the options for the dvd drive as such:

# [file system] [mount point]   [type]      [options]       [dump]  [pass]
/dev/hda        /media/cdrom0   udf,iso9660 user,noauto     0       0

Changes
Feb 2 2008
- updated file chunking algorithm. Old one didn't do subdirectories well. This one reads all files ordered alphabetically (case insensitive) by path, then fills a disc as much as possible alphabetically. This results in like files being grouped together, but results in smaller files being added early on to fill space.
- added --label parameter which is used to specify a label prefix for all discs in the current job (ie all discs produced from current directory and subdirectories). Each disc has a LABELXXX assigned, and on the final disc a LABEL.idx is included, which contains a listing of all files and their corresponding disc number in the set (ie Atom Heart One Atom Second is on AUDIO 4, disc 4 of the Audio batch). It makes for easier casual file finding.
Jan 17 2008
- monitors for blank disc insertion, removing need to hit enter and facilitating burning while operator is doing something else.
- updated long filename renaming strategy to preserve extension
Jan 11 2008
- reimplemented disc file chunker, now adds dir by dir and alphabetically to better fit like files to disc.
- misc bug fixes, including better status printing
Dec 12 2007
- fixed oversight with mount point, now defaults to /media/cdrom
- made clarification in documentation (thx to frenchn00b)