Cdrdao records audio or data CD-Rs in disk-at-once (DAO) mode based on a textual description of the CD contents.

Recording in disk-at-once mode writes the complete disc, i.e. lead-in, one or more tracks and lead-out, in a single step. The commonly used track-at-once (TAO) mode writes each track independently which requires link blocks between two tracks. You probably want to use this if you're copying a CD with multiple tracks, like most audio CDs.

cdrdao can also handle the bin/cue format commonly used for VCDs or disks with subchannel data.

If you just want to burn a normal data CD, you probably want wodim instead.