Linux Multimedia Hacks

Rip CDs Straight from Konqueror

The Konqueror file manager provides an incredibly easy-to-use CD-ripping program—just drag and drop files from the CD to convert them on the fly to MP3, Ogg, or FLAC.

Some people like to claim that almost everything under Linux (particularly when it comes to multimedia) is far too difficult. However, I think that after trying this next hack, even skeptics will agree that ripping a CD from KDE is about as easy as you can get.

First of all, even though this hack uses Konqueror and the KDE Control Center exclusively, you can use the hack in other desktop environments as well. To rip a CD from within Konqueror, put the CD in the drive and close any autorun CD-playing apps that might launch. Then open up Konqueror and if you are in file browsing mode, click Audio CD Browser from the sidebar; otherwise enter audiocd:/ in the Location field. In the main window (see Figure 2-7) you will see a number of directories and files appear. These are all virtual files and directories, but become real files once you copy them. The main directory contains each of the tracks from the CD in WAV format. To rip one or more tracks from the CD, just select the tracks you want to rip and drag them onto your desktop or into a another Konqueror window opened to the directory of your choosing, or optionally right-click on the selected files and choose Copy To and then browse to where you want to copy the files. As Konqueror shows you its progress, it is actually ripping the files ...