[RndTbl] CD Writing and MP3's using RH 7.3 - Valhalla

[Gilles Detillieux]

According to Mel Seder:
> I installed 7.3 over the weekend and would like to start burning some
> audio CD's for my car and stereo system. Now I'd like to do the same
> with 7.3.
> 
> I did a custom->everything install and selected the ide-scsi option
> when the install prompted me.  I have a PLEXTOR as my CD writer and a
> CREATIVE as my CD ROM.  The PLEXTOR hardware was installed as the
> master when my box was originally assembled and has not been changed. 
> cdrecord -scanbus finds my PLEXTOR but not the CREATIVE.  GRUB is my
> boot loader.

The installer probably just sets up the ide-scsi emulation for CD-R and
CD-RW drives, and not CD-ROM drives.  You shouldn't really need ide-scsi
for your CD-ROM, although I think some programs like XCDRoast may only
support ripping tracks from SCSI devices.  You may want to try adding
an option the the kernel command line in /boot/grub/grub.conf to coax
emulation of that drive, if it matters.

I've only once set up ide-scsi on such a dual CD drive system, and at the
time, I only intended to set it up for the CD-R, but the CD-ROM drive came
along for the ride.  I suspect it was a quirk in the kernel at the time.
(This was a Red Hat 6.1 system, without kernel updates, if I recall.)
I had put an append="hdc=ide-scsi" in /etc/lilo.conf, and hdd was also
remapped, so I ended up going with the flow, and added hdd=ide-scsi to
the append in case a subsequent kernel update changed this behaviour,
but I never did look into it any further.

> I was exposed to some of the non-gui programs for CD Writing and the
> command line parameters were,  IMHO,  cryptic at best.  I think I would
> be better off using a nice, well behaved gui for the task at hand
> rather than learning CD Writer technical terms and lingo.
> 
> I have a couple/few questions.
> 
> 1) Which app would you suggest I use for burning CD-R's?

I've been happy with gcombust.  I've tried XCDRoast and keasycd and found
them lacking.  (That was over a year ago, mind you!)  I usually install
the latest alpha releases of the cdrtools packages from the falsehope
mirror on MUUG's server, along with their build of gcombust.  I've mostly
used this only for data CDs, though, and not audio.  I used an older
version of gcombust over a year ago to copy an audio CD directly from
drive to drive, but several of the tracks it copied ended prematurely.
I'd expect the more recent versions to be more reliable now, but I
haven't pursued this further.  (Newer versions support cdparanoia,
while the older one I used before didn't.)

See ftp://ftp.muug.mb.ca/mirror/falsehope/pub/cdrtools/alpha/
and ftp://ftp.muug.mb.ca/mirror/falsehope/pub/gcombust/

As heretical as it may seem on this forum, I've been quite happy with Nero
and Roxio CD recording software on Win98 for making audio CDs at home.

> 2) Are there any web sites I can get/share MP3's at?  I tried getting
> limewire but if I recall correctly I had trouble with either getting
> the Jave Runtime or installing it.

Depends on what you're looking for.  There's legal stuff available on
mp3.com, which is supposedly advertiser-supported, as well as folk MP3s
at efolk.com.  I haven't looked into the currently popular file sharing
sites.

> 3) Would someone be willing to assist me in getting up and running?
> 
> 
> =====
> "The sooner you make five thousand mistakes,  the sooner you will be able to correct them." - Kimon Nicolaides

Well, if you take Nicolaides' advice, maybe you should try getting it up
and running on your own.  :-P  Seriously, though, I'm sure if you run into
problems and post details here, you'll get some help.

-- 
Gilles R. Detillieux              E-mail: <grdetil at scrc.umanitoba.ca>
Spinal Cord Research Centre       WWW:    http://www.scrc.umanitoba.ca/
Dept. Physiology, U. of Manitoba  Winnipeg, MB  R3E 3J7  (Canada)