How to Backup Your CD's on Linux

It is often recommended that Linux users try to get EAC working with Wine. However, this doesn't always work.

When Wine and EAC don't want to cooperate, Rubyripper, with its test-and-copy layer on top of cdparanoia's oft-bemoaned correction, is the next best thing.

So, without further ado...

Installation (Linux)

Method 1: install via your distro's package manager

This is the most convenient way, but it won't always give you the most up-to-date version, even if Rubyripper is in your distro's repositories

Method 2: install from the tarball

1. Download the tarball from http://code.google.com/p/rubyripper/downloads/list (0.5.4 is the current version at the time of writing)

2. untar it in ~/local (or the directory of your choice): tar -xjvf rubyripper-0.5.4.tar.bz2

3. Install the dependencies listed in the README. (if you're using this method because the distro-provided version is out of date, you can still use the package manager to install these)

3.1 Ubuntu-specific: Install the following packages: cdparanoia ruby-gnome2 libgettext-ruby1.8 ruby-full flac cd-discid normalize eject vorbis-tools.

4. Follow the installation instructions in the README file.

Method 3: run it from your home directory

1. Download the tarball from http://code.google.com/p/rubyripper/downloads/list (0.5.4 is the current version at the time of writing)

2. untar it in ~/local (or the directory of your choice): tar -xjvf rubyripper-0.5.4.tar.bz2

3. Install the dependencies listed in the README. (if you're using this method because the distro-provided version is out of date, you can still use the package manager to install these)

3.1 Ubuntu-specific: Install the following packages: cdparanoia ruby-gnome2 libgettext-ruby1.8 ruby-full flac cd-discid eject vorbis-tools.

Configuration

Launch Rubyripper

Click the Preferences button in the upper left corner of the window

Secure Ripping

1. Look up your CD drive's read offset in the AccurateRip database.

2. Copy the read offset value into the Cdrom offset field

Recommended Ripping Options:

• Match all chunks: 2 times

• Match erroneous chunks: 3 times

• Maximum trials: 20

You can probably leave the Ripping options at their defaults, however:

• it doesn't hurt to bump the Match erroneous chunks value up to 3.

• If you don't set the Maximum trials, a badly scratched CD could cause Rubyripper to keep trying for hours before randomly getting matches on bad chunks. (note: if this happens, please do not upload your rip)

Ripping related:

• Pass cdparanoia options: -Z

· This disables cdparanoia's built-in correction and leaves you relying entirely on Rubyripper's test-and-copy method. The speed benefit of this might be worth it, given cdparanoia's reputation of not having very secure correction on its own.

Codecs

FLAC

• --best -V

· This will produce the smallest files, but encoding may take a little longer (recommended, equal to -8 -V).

• -5 -V

· This is the default compression level, slightly larger than the highest compression, -8, but the encoding will go faster.

Vorbis

(note: many/most Linux distributions ship the official xiph.org encoder. The tweaked and tuned aoTuV beta 5 encoder is recommended as superior by HydrogenAudio. If your distro doesn't ship this version, see the section on aoTuV Oggenc under Other codecs)

• -q 6

· This is the lowest quality preset allowed. Its nominal bitrate is 192kbps, but the actual average can vary widely depending on the type of music.

• -q 7

· 224kbps nominal bitrate. Again, actual ABR can vary greatly.

• -q 8

· 256kbps nominal bitrate. Again, actual ABR can vary greatly.

• -q 9

· This produces VBR files at the same nominal bitrate as the highest possible CBR mp3.

• -q 10

· This is the higest setting, and produces 500kbps nominal VBR files. Lossy audio at this high of a bitrate is probably unnecessary. Use FLAC/Lossless if you care that much about quality.

Lame Mp3

• -V2 --vbr-new

· V2 is the lowest quality VBR preset allowed on the tracker.

• -V0 --vbr-new

· This is the highest quality VBR preset. Many people prefer this.

• -b 320

· This will give you the maximum possible constant bitrate of 320kbps. Many view this to be overly wasteful compared to V0 (which can hit 320kbps when it needs to) and not necessary, but some people appreciate that extra little bit.

Note: The switch --vbr-new, which enabled a superior VBR mode in LAME 3.97 and some previous versions, is no longer needed with LAME 3.98 as it is now the default VBR mode. However, if you're still using LAME 3.97 or older, you have to add --vbr-new to your commandline to use that mode.

Other

This is where you would put settings for other codecs, such as AAC (with FAAC), or updated versions of the above codecs that your distribution doesn't yet include.

FAAC

aoTuV Oggenc

1. If your distribution does not already ship a version of oggenc with Aoyumi's tunings, download it from http://artfwo.googlepages.com/oggenc-aotuvb5.bz2 and uncompress it somewhere where you can run it.

2. Disable the Create m3u playlist option in the Codec related section at the bottom of the window

3. Include the following line in the Other field of Rubyripper's codec settings: ~/local/bin/oggenc-aotuvb5 -q 7 -d %y -N %n -t "%t" -l "%b" -a "%a" -G "%g" -o "%o.ogg" %i

3.1. Replace ~/local/bin/ with the directory where you placed the executable

3.2. Replace -q 7 with your desired quality preset.

Freedb

The defaults should be sufficient here.

However, if you would prefer to use Musicbrainz' FreeDB gateway (which often has better data but doesn't have quite so many albums in its database), change the Freedb server to the following:

freedb.musicbrainz.org.

Other

Filenaming schemes must include, at the very least, Artist and Album in the directory name and Tracknumber and Trackname in the filename.

• Base directory: this can be wherever you want the resulting files to be.

• The following are decent settings but can be tweaked so long as all the appropriate data remains.

· Standard: %a - %b (%y)/%n - %t

· Various artists: %a - %b (%y)/%n - %va - %t

Click the arrow by Show options for "Filenaming scheme" for a list of variables that can be used.

The Programs of choice and Debug options are matters of personal preference and do not actually have any effect on the rip.

Troubleshooting

Rubyripper freezes after ripping the first track (Rubyripper 0.5.3 or earlier)

Set Preferences >Codecs >Number of extra encoding threads to 0.

Explanation: This is apparently a bug introduced with version 0.17 of the ruby gnome bindings. As a work-around, Rubyripper 0.5.4 no longer uses extra threads for encoding.

Issue 221 on Rubyripper's code.google.com issue tracker

Rubyripper doesn't find the CD drive.

Try the following in a terminal window:

ls -l /dev/cdrom*

You should get output something like the following:

lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 4 2008-10-08 16:56 /dev/cdrom -> scd0

In Preferences >Secure Ripping >Cdrom device, replace "cdrom" with the device name shown after the arrow.