-Q. I am using MacOSX and I am having problems to use abcde.
-A. Well, I have a Mac, but I use linux on it. I have not been able to find
- a way to make it work there, since I do not have the development tools
- installed. I have placed a basic support, but some user reports are just
- complaining about abcde not encoding the ripped tracks, as if
- cdda2wav/cdparanoia/cddafs would never end reading them. If you have such
- a system and experience problems, please, report them, and I will try to
- work them out with your help.
+Q. Who created abcde? Who develops it nowadays?
+A. It was originally created by Robert Woodcook. He decided to give up
+ maintaining it at some point in 2002 and Jesus Climent took over. Contact
+ jesus.climent@hispalinux.es if you have a problem or a suggestion.
+
+
+1. INSTALLATION
+ ============
+
+Q. How can I install abcde on my system?
+A. To get abcde you can use a pre-packaged version, available for Debian,
+ FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD and others.
+ In case you want to install your own release, you need to download the
+ sources and install the complementary programs (abcde is just a frontend
+ and its functionality is provided by other programs).
+
+ abcde needs cd-discid. Grab it from:
+ http://www.hispalinux.es/~data/files/cd-discid/
+
+ Read the README files for a complete list of requirements.
+
+Q. I have a problem, and I reported some time ago. Have you solved it already?
+A. Maybe. Try downloading the trunk of the development from
+ http://svn.hispalinux.es/svn/abcde/trunk
+
+Q. When are you going to release a new version?
+A. When it is ready. I keep on having new ideas and adding them to the trunk
+ (stored in the URL above), so I dont release until all the ideas are
+ finished.
+
+
+2. EXECUTION
+ =========
+
+Q. Low on disk space?
+A. abcde has different algorithms to schedule ripping and encoding - to
+ optimize for disk conservation, use -l. You can also define
+ WAVOUTPUTDIR=/some/other/path to your /etc/abcde.conf or ~/.abcde.conf to
+ store the WAV files on another NFS shared fisk, for example.
+ Also, UNIX pipes have also been implemented, using "-P", so abcde reads and
+ encodes the tracks from the CD at once. However, it has the drawback that
+ only one format can be encoded at a time.
+
+Q. How can i make abcde encode faster? My CD reader is way faster than the pace
+ it can encode my tracks.
+A. abcde can take advantage of SMP systems, just like make. Try 'abcde -j 2' -
+ it'll run two encoder jobs while it rips the next track.
+ You can also make use of systems which are networked, with the help of
+ distmp3. For example, MachineA has a better CPU power and MachineB has a CD
+ drive. Run distmp3host (included in distmp3) on Machine A, and then run
+ abcde -r MachineA from MachineB (where "MachineA" is a dns name or IP
+ address). Use this in combination with '-j 0' to shift all encoding off the
+ local machine.
+
+Q. I am having problems with *my CD reading program* reading the drive as a
+ user.
+A. You might have to add yourself (or the users who want to use abcde) to the
+ cdrom group and change the permissions of the cdrom device to 660. If you
+ have a SCSI cdrom drive, check the permissions of /dev/sg* as well.