FAQ

   1 0. INTRODUCTION
   2    ============
   3
   4 Q. Who created abcde? Who develops it nowadays?
   5 A. It was originally created by Robert Woodcook. He decided to give up
   6    maintaining it at some point in 2002 and Jesus Climent took over.  Contact
   7    jesus.climent@hispalinux.es if you have a problem or a suggestion.
   8
   9
  10 1. INSTALLATION
  11    ============
  12
  13 Q. How can I install abcde on my system?
  14 A. To get abcde you can use a pre-packaged version, available for Debian,
  15    FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD and others.
  16    In case you want to install your own release, you need to download the
  17    source and install the complementary programs (abcde is just a frontend
  18    and its functionality is provided by other programs).
  19
  20    abcde needs cd-discid. Grab it from:
  21    http://www.hispalinux.es/~data/files/cd-discid/
  22
  23    Read the README files for a complete list of requirements.
  24
  25 Q. I have a problem, and I reported some time ago. Have you solved it already?
  26 A. Maybe. Try downloading the trunk of the development from
  27    http://svn.hispalinux.es/svn/abcde/trunk
  28
  29 Q. When are you going to release a new version?
  30 A. When it is ready. I keep on having new ideas and adding them to the trunk
  31    (stored in the URL above), so I dont release until all the ideas are
  32    finished.
  33
  34
  35 2. EXECUTION
  36    =========
  37
  38 Q. I want to force abcde 2.x to behave more like 1.x. How do I do it?
  39 A. Put these options in your abcde.conf:
  40
  41    INTERACTIVE=n
  42    OUTPUTTYPE=mp3
  43    ID3TAGV=1
  44
  45 Q. Low on disk space?
  46 A. abcde has different algorithms to schedule ripping and encoding - to
  47    optimize for disk conservation, use -l. You can also define
  48    WAVOUTPUTDIR=/some/other/path to your /etc/abcde.conf or ~/.abcde.conf to
  49    store the WAV files on another NFS shared fisk, for example.
  50    Also, UNIX pipes have also been implemented, using "-P", so abcde reads and
  51    encodes the tracks from the CD at once. However, it has the drawback that
  52    only one format can be encoded at a time.
  53
  54 Q. How can i make abcde encode faster? My CD reader is way faster than the pace
  55    it can encode my tracks.
  56 A. abcde can take advantage of SMP systems, just like make. Try 'abcde -j 2' -
  57    it'll run two encoder jobs while it rips the next track.
  58    You can also make use of systems which are networked, with the help of
  59    distmp3. For example, MachineA has a better CPU power and MachineB has a CD
  60    drive. Run distmp3host (included in distmp3) on Machine A, and then run
  61    abcde -r MachineA from MachineB (where "MachineA" is a dns name or IP
  62    address). Use this in combination with '-j 0' to shift all encoding off the
  63    local machine.
  64
  65 Q. I am having problems with *my CD reading program* reading the drive as a
  66    user.
  67 A. You might have to add yourself (or the users who want to use abcde) to the
  68    cdrom group and change the permissions of the cdrom device to 660. If you
  69    have a SCSI cdrom drive, check the permissions of /dev/sg* as well.
  70
  71 Q. I would like to give the trackname and the artist_name directly to the
  72    encoder (in my case oggenc), but found no documentation.
  73 A. That is not possible, since abcde gets the information from CDDB database.
  74    You can create a template and fill it with the option "-n". Also, you can
  75    get the CDDB entry and edit it yourself. abcde has also an option to drop
  76    back to a template if you like none of the CDDB entries, selecting 0 from
  77    the CDDB options.
  78
  79 Q. (Thanks to Amaya) Where are those options and settings defined? Why dont
  80    you include a proper abcde.conf as an example?
  81 A. I do. It should be installed under /etc/abcde.conf and contains more or
  82    less all the defaults abcde uses. You can use $(HOME)/.abcde.conf to
  83    override those defaults. More information can be obtained from the man page
  84    which can be consulted using "man abcde".
  85
  86 Q. I keep on getting files with ".ogg.ogg" extension. What am I doing wrong?
  87 A. The code for multiple-output adds automatically the extension of the
  88    different outputs you select with the "-o" extension (or with OUTPUTTYPE
  89    variable). Erase the ".${OUTPUTTYPE}" part from the OUTPUTFORMAT variable
  90    in /etc/abcde.conf or ~/.abcde.conf
  91
  92 Q. I have modified some of the options, and now CDDB has stopped working.
  93 A. Check that you have modified everything in the right way. For instance, if
  94    you modify the HTTPGET program you might want to set some options of your
  95    own. If you use the predefined ones (wget, curl and fetch) abcde will try
  96    to use some defaults. Keep in mind that the output should go to the output
  97    as standard output, to be saved in a file for later use.
  98
  99    If abcde seems to be ignoring your configuration options or not running
 100    commands such as the encoder, you may have misquoted something. Config
 101    options such as the following do not work:
 102
 103    LAMEOPTS=-h -k
 104
 105    Try this instead:
 106
 107    LAMEOPTS='-h -k'
 108
 109 Q. How can I separate the different output files I get using multiple-output
 110    support?
 111 A. Use the OUTPUT variable in PLAYLISTFORMAT and OUTPUTFORMAT. It holds the
 112    different output file types you passed to abcde (i.e., ogg, mp3, flac)
 113    during playlist creation and file/directory creation.
 114
 115 Q. I have a CD with a data track, and abcde complaints it cannot read/encode
 116    it.
 117 A. It is not easy to find a data track on a CD. Right now, I can only think
 118    of getting the track info from CDDB and ask the user for continuing should
 119    a "data" track name is found. But the solution is far from been optimal.
 120    For now, if you find a "data" track and you know the number, restart abcde
 121    specifying the tracks to be encoded, leaving out the data one.
 122    From version 2.2 onwards, abcde includes some checkings with cdparanoia, to
 123    try to get this right.
 124
 125 Q. I am requested to have "eject" when setting the speed although I do not use
 126    it for anything.
 127 A. If you do not use cdparanoia, eject is used for setting the speed of the
 128    cdrom drive. You can substitute it for "setcd" with "-x" as the argument,
 129    but you have to install it manually (setcd is, at least, available in
 130    Debian).
 131    Another way to get the same results is using the pre_read function, defined
 132    in your /etc/abcde.conf file.
 133
 134 Q. I have a CD set with 1+ discs, and want to have them in the same directory,
 135    sorted properly. What can abcde do for me?
 136 A. Set abcde to rip the first CD and give it the option "-t 101". Use a generic
 137    name for the CD, and reuse it with the rest of the CDs, editing the CDDB
 138    entries. Use "-t 201" for the second CD and so on. Use "-w <comment>" to
 139    add a comment about the CD you are ripping (-w "disc #"). Alternatively you
 140    can use only the "-t ###" option and then move all the files to the same
 141    directory, but the tag/comment information on the files will differ. If you
 142    want the tagged track number to be set to the modified number you should use
 143    "-T ###".
 144    Even better! If you use "-W <cd_number>", abcde will put a comment to every
 145    CD set ("CD <number>") and modify the number of the tracks both in the file
 146    name and the tag/comment information.
 147
 148 Q. I have a live concert. I want to encode it in a single file. How do i do it?
 149 A. Use "-1" and it will be encoded in a single file. Use "-M" to make a CUE
 150    sheet file where the information about the tracks is stored.
 151
 152 3. CDDB
 153    ====
 154
 155 Q. I need to go through an HTTP proxy for CDDB access.
 156 A. No problem, just export your http_proxy variable first so wget/fetch/curl
 157    can see it.
 158
 159 Q. I already store CDDB entries in my hard disc. Can I make use of them?
 160 A. Piece of cake. Just edit CDDBLOCALDIR to point to the repository and give
 161    abcde the "-L" flag to make use of it.
 162
 163 Q. Fine, now it uses local CDDB, but I have no network connection. How can I
 164    disable CDDB checks?
 165 A. Use the "-L -n" combination. It will try to use local CDDB entries, and if
 166    nothing can be found, it will use a template. You will be also given the
 167    choice to edit such template.
 168
 169 Q. How can I use some other CDDB information provider?
 170 A. abcde now uses FreeDB by default. To use a different FreeDB mirror or
 171    another CDDB service, change the CDDBURL option in your abcde.conf.
 172
 173 Q. After requesting CDDB data, I received several answers which seem to be
 174    quite alike. Can I find out the difference between some of them?
 175 A. Yes. When asked which one you want to select, use "X,Y" where X and Y are
 176    the numbers of the selections you want to find the difference between.
 177
 178
 179 3. FORMATS
 180    =======
 181
 182 Q. What formats can I encode my music to?
 183 A. As for version 2.2, abcde includes support for MP3, Ogg/Vorbis,
 184    Ogg/Speex, Flac and MPP/MP+(Musepack). Support for AAC will be added once
 185    an FLOSS encoder/decoder is working.
 186
 187 Q. I want the new *put the newest and coolest codec there* format to be
 188    supported by abcde. Abcde is so cool but i want to encode also to this
 189    new format...
 190 A. Patches are welcome! ;)
 191    No, seriously, if the format is usable, available for Linux and open
 192    source/free software, it should be fairly easy to integrate. Support for
 193    AAC (m4p) should be the next one to be introduced.
 194
 195 Q. I use Debian/RedHat/(put your Unix flavour here) and MP3 encoding is not
 196    working. What am I doing wrong?
 197 A. Since MP3 is considered non-free (you get it for free, but hardware players
 198    and net broadcasters have to pay license fees), some release engineering
 199    groups and release management teams have decided not to provide MP3 encoding
 200    tools.
 201    These distributions or operative systems have decided to use Ogg/Vorbis as
 202    the default encoding format, since it contains no (known) patent claims
 203    and they are (supposed to be) completely Free (released under a BSD-like
 204    license).
 205    However, there is no strong (at the moment) hardware support, although
 206    some groups and companies are strongly working on getting it, real soon
 207    now. For that reason some people prefer to encode to MP3.
 208
 209    UPDATE *** UPDATE
 210    There are known brands already selling Ogg/Vorbis portable players: Rio,
 211    iRiver, Neuros, iAudio,...
 212    Go buy one and you have no more reasons to use MP3.
 213
 214    If you are among those individuals, you might need to add support for MP3
 215    encoding to your system:
 216    Debian : check http://ftp.nerim.net/debian-marillat to install lame in your
 217             system. Others prefer bladeenc. Check www.apt-get.org or google.
 218    RedHat : search on rpmfind.net
 219    FreeBSD: By default includes LAME support.
 220    OpenBSD: Available by specifying you want to install the port with LAME
 221             support, or by just installing it later from the ports tree.
 222    NetBSD : Available in pkgsrc.
 223
 224    Others : Please, help me here.
 225
 226 Q. Huh! Why is MPPENCODER (with MPP) and .mpc the extension?
 227 A. Dunno. You must ask the guys who created and defined the format. The
 228    standard is MPEGplus (MPP/MP+) but the files use .mpc extension.
 229
 230
 231 4. MISC PROBLEMS
 232    ==== ========
 233
 234 Q. What happened with normalize?
 235 A. Normalize has changed its name under Debian, which is the GNU/Linux
 236    distribution for developing abcde (well, is The GNU/Linux Distribution
 237    i only use, at the moment). Now it is called normalize-audio.
 238    If you are using some other flavour of OS, you need to change the name
 239    of the executable in your abcde.conf file.
 240
 241 Q. I am using MacOSX and I am having problems to use abcde.
 242 A. Well, I have a Mac, but I use linux on it. I have not been able to find
 243    a way to make it work there, since I do not have the development tools
 244    installed. I have placed a basic support, but some user reports are just
 245    complaining about abcde not encoding the ripped tracks, as if
 246    cdda2wav/cdparanoia/cddafs would never end reading them. If you have such
 247    a system and experience problems, please, report them, and I will try to
 248    work them out with your help.
 249
 250 Q. My hardware player (put it here) does not recognize the playlists created
 251    with abcde. What I am doing wrong?
 252 A. Try using "-m" when creating the playlists, or setting DOSPLAYLIST as an
 253    option in the config file.
 254
 255 OBSOLETE
 256 --------
 257 Q. I set KEEPWAVS to "y" but abcde insists on erasing my directory, along
 258    with the wav tracks. What I am doing wrong?
 259 A. The default action set includes clean, which cleans the temp directory,
 260    if nothing goes wrong. Take the "clean" out from the action list and you
 261    are done.
 262    UPDATE: KEEPWAVS unselects now the clean action.
 263
 264 --
 265 Jesus Climent <jesus.climent@hispalinux.es>