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You're probably spoiled by the package manager. Ports are neat, but apt is a dream. At the very least you'll have to get used to a different way of doing things. If you use a lot of custom repositories (e.g. rarewares) you might encounter a few headaches getting all the software you want. There are some things, like 'apt-cache search' that it's not immediately obvious how to do on ports. I think you're just supposed to string together 'find' and 'grep' commands, since ports is just a tree full of text files.

It's definately worth a shot if that kind of thing interests you. But I'd install it on a router or something first, so you can get used to it. Personally, I got tired of wondering "Now, how do I do THIS with ports?!", and went back to debian. Which isn't to say apt is more capable, I just know it better.

There's also the issue of getting used to the BSD userland; the GNU tools have a few more features, the BSD tools are a bit more minimalistic. Which again comes down to a matter of preference.

How many packages are there in fink? About 4000 How many are there in Debian? About 24,000. Even Ubuntu can't compete with Debian for sheer abundance of software. And that's only counting the official repositories. Can I use Rarewares in fink?

Wow, I am simply underwhelmed by the effort, 3 fuggin songs, c'mon! I've always thought that they had a reason other that piracy for DRM, like trying to protect their business models. No self respecting scene group would be caught dead using those releases and for anyone who does want to pirate something, there isn't exactly a dearth of bittorrent links to choose from, not even for flac versions. I've always thought DRM was stupid due to the fact that CDs have easily defeatable DRM making the whole thing utterly pointless, unless of course they are trying to protect an obsolete business model... 3 songs, what a grand expiremint. Seriously, anyone willing to pay for mp3s likely wouldn't copy em, because if they had wanted to, they would have just waited for a crappily encoded(Those mother frackers need to update their copies of lame.exe, btw :/ L.A.M.E. 3.98a7 http://rarewares.org/ FTW) scene release to show up in the waters.

Not a system for everyone, since many students will be more interested in the big names which tend to get pirated in the first place, but a nice enough system, and the artists certainly aren't hard done by. They even provide software, MARS (Mindawn Audio Ripping Software), for ripping CD, WAV or AIFF to OGG or FLAC format for using with their system. That's not to say that you couldn't use flac/oggenc, especially since it isn't F/OSS, but it's nice that they've provided their own multi-platform utility with a GUI to help out in that regard... not to mention the fact that the MARS documentation says that you need oggenc/flac/cdparanoia installed on Linux in any case.

There's a nice piece of software that I use called Exact Audio Copy. It provides an amazing GUI that can be switched from noobie mode to ultra-1337, it can detect and correct errors on even really badly scratched CD's, provides online CD database access, custom naming schemes, lots of ID3 tag options, and you can encode to *any friggin format you want to*. It has built-in support for a very large number of formats, but you can also integrate it with LAME, oggenc, flac and whathaveyou. Oh yeah, and it's free too. Windows only, but it might work with wine on linux.

Also, if you want more bang for your buck, er, download, Rarewares has special builds for oggenc, flac, and other formats that support a larger number of features. For instance, they added hard min-max bitrate levels for ogg vorbis (so ogg doesn't encode silence at 100kbps), and something called "impulse-trigger", which helps with promblems in echo from rimshots or something like that. The forums at hydrogen audio explain the extra features in more detail.

But I shouldn't even need to be saying this. I mean, I assume you have tried ogg already, right? Or are you just spouting off rhetoric with no idea of what you're talking about?

http://www.cdfreaks.com/news/12061 DVD-Audio's CPPM can be got around with a WinDVD patch
Posted by Seán Byrne on 06 July 2005 - 09:50 - Source: Rarewares

When DVD-Video's encryption had been broken about 6 years back, the next generation of the Audio CD, DVD-Audio had been delayed for several months. It was originally to use the CSS2 encryption scheme, but the breaking of CSS meant the music industry no longer wanted anything to do with CSS in the new upcoming DVD-Audio format at the time. As a result, DVD-Audio took on Content Protection for Pre-recorded Media (CPPM), a much more advanced copy-protection system, which includes Key Blocks and watermarking and allows revocation (for compromised devices).

It was not long ago that DVD-Audio playback software came to the PC. For example Creative's SoundBlaster Audigy 2 comes with a DVD-Audio as well as WinDVD's DVD-Audio add-on. So, rather than try to compromise the DVD-Audio's encryption itself, someone has succeeded in making a patch that uses WinDVD to perform the decryption and playback, but instead pipes the decrypted audio output to the hard drive instead of the sound card. The patch which includes several tools requires WinDVD 5, 6 or 7 to work.

Several tools to work with DVD-Audio (read: ripping)
They require WinDVD 5, 6 or 7 installed, as they don't do the decryption themselves, and instead patch WinDVD to output the decrypted stream to disk instead of the sound card.
The tools are:

* DVD-A ripper: Intended to decrypt CPPM protected AOB and VOB files on DVD-Audio discs.
* PPCM ripper: Intended to capture Packed PCM (MLP) stream (stereo or multichannel) to .WAV files.
* DVD-A Explorer: Intended to peep&grab on DVD-Audio tracks (PCM and Packed PCM).


This tool is available at Rarewares here.

While InterVideo is likely to update its software to block the use of this patch, it appears that DVD-Audio's CPPM has been compromised at least in DVD-Audio discs up until this time or until the keys used in the current versions of WinDVD that this tool works on are revoked in upcoming DVD-Audio disc releases. However, this would also mean that WinDVD users would be forced to update their software to play future DVD-Audio discs.

Since Rareware's hasn't been slashdotted yet, here is the link:

* DVD-A ripper: Intended to decrypt CPPM protected AOB and VOB files on DVD-Audio discs.
* PPCM ripper: Intended to capture Packed PCM (MLP) stream (stereo or multichannel) to .WAV files.
* DVD-A Explorer: Intended to peep&grab on DVD-Audio tracks (PCM and Packed PCM).

This tool is available at Rarewares here.

Link to software

"DVD Audio Tools", second from bottom.

Considering the site already seems to be slashdotted...

---

DVD-Audio's CPPM can be got around with a WinDVD patch

Posted by Sean Byrne on 06 July 2005 - 09:50 - Source: Rarewares

When DVD-Video's encryption had been broken about 6 years back, the next generation of the Audio CD, DVD-Audio had been delayed for several months. It was originally to use the CSS2 encryption scheme, but the breaking of CSS meant the music industry no longer wanted anything to do with CSS in the new upcoming DVD-Audio format at the time. As a result, DVD-Audio took on Content Protection for Pre-recorded Media (CPPM), a much more advanced copy-protection system, which includes Key Blocks and watermarking and allows revocation (for compromised devices).

It was not long ago that DVD-Audio playback software came to the PC. For example Creative's SoundBlaster Audigy 2 comes with a DVD-Audio as well as WinDVD's DVD-Audio add-on. So, rather than try to compromise the DVD-Audio's encryption itself, someone has succeeded in making a patch that uses WinDVD to perform the decryption and playback, but instead pipes the decrypted audio output to the hard drive instead of the sound card. The patch which includes several tools requires WinDVD 5, 6 or 7 to work.

Several tools to work with DVD-Audio (read: ripping)
They require WinDVD 5, 6 or 7 installed, as they don't do the decryption themselves, and instead patch WinDVD to output the decrypted stream to disk instead of the sound card.
The tools are:

- DVD-A ripper: Intended to decrypt CPPM protected AOB and VOB files on DVD-Audio discs.
- PPCM ripper: Intended to capture Packed PCM (MLP) stream (stereo or multichannel) to .WAV files.
- DVD-A Explorer: Intended to peep&grab on DVD-Audio tracks (PCM and Packed PCM).

This tool is available at Rarewares here [http://www.rarewares.org/others.html%5D.

While InterVideo is likely to update its software to block the use of this patch, it appears that DVD-Audio's CPPM has been compromised at least in DVD-Audio discs up until this time or until the keys used in the current versions of WinDVD that this tool works on are revoked in upcoming DVD-Audio disc releases. However, this would also mean that WinDVD users would be forced to update their software to play future DVD-Audio discs.

CDfreaks has nothing to do with this release. The guys from RareWares are the ones taking risks to bring these tools to the community.

http://www.rarewares.org/

• Short answer:
  • You should test them yourself, and choose which one best suit your needs.
• Somewhat long answer:
  • For best possible quality: Lossless (WavPack, FLAC, Monkey's Audio)
  • For highest quality @ high bitrates: Musepack (MPC)
  • For overall high quality, even at lower bitrates (96 ~ 160kbps): Psytel AAC, Ogg Vorbis
  • For best compatibility: Lame using --alt-presets
  • For very low bitrates (<64kbps): MP3pro, Ogg Vorbis, WMA, Real Audio.

Well, technically it does work with the iTunes store, so long as you convert the songs to MP3 files, using hymn and an AAC to MP3 converter. Yes, the quality will drop but oh-so-very-slightly. (People tend to really overestimate the quality loss when transcoding a single time. Do it like five or ten times though....)

There is a Debian repository at rarewares where you can get the aotuv version of vorbis enconder. Grab yours today!

here