ClarkConnect, round 2

So, I fried a router... meh. I built a replacement. I also nabbed a gigabit switch for $20. Unfortunately, the hardware I tried to use for the router failed, and I had to use a "real machine" that only had 10/100 network bits in it.

I got the old hardware back up and running, and I also got some other parts together and ended up building a "home server" with ClarkConnect. Right now, it has two GigE cards (which is ridiculous, I know, since my incoming broadband is less than 10 Mbit) and a 30 GB laptop hard drive. Maybe some day, I'll grab that little chenbro case and 4 terabyte drives that everyone is using for their custom WHS installs.

The machine is running off of the motherboard from a Compaq machine that I got from the Weldy's 1.2 GHz Athlon and two sticks of 256 MB RAM. That combined with the laptop hard drive, and the gigabit nics being PCI probably contributed to the paltry backup speed of around 6.5 Megabytes per second. Oh well, I got my 11 GB of ripped CDs off of my comptuer, and I built a machine that can act as some sort of backup server.

Of course, I'll need to add space, that 30 GB laptop drive is full, because I added the installer for World of Warcraft and some patches to it as well. That'll be another adventure.

Also, I've never gotten the print server working on ClarkConnect. It is one of the few reasons I'm tempted to try out Amahi, just because I know Fedora better than RHEL, and that I know if I plug in my printer in Fedora, it will work. I posted a little help request on the ClarkConnect Forums:

http://www.clarkconnect.com/forums/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=111094&an=0&page=0#Post111094

I'm guessing I just need to get gutenprint installed, but I don't really know how. Probably something easy like ssh-ing into the box and typing "apt-get install gutenprint". Maybe I should just try that. LOL. I really don't want to have to get out my usb print server. It is just one more thing that I need to plug into the wall.

Ripping CDs in Windows Media Player - Music Brainz?

Hmm... I ripped a *lot* of CDs this week. Windows Media Player did a great job. However, I've got a handful of CDs that didn't have track information available. Some discs simply could not be identified. Some errored out, some ripped but with "unknown" artist/album/track info.

I'm probably going to see if I can give Banshee a chance with Music Brainz on those discs. I doubt I'll re-rip my whole collection, but I suppose that's one step closer to freedom. Does anyone know how MusicBrains actually works?

Ripping it up with Banshee

I had a really good session with Banshee last night. I've been trying to rip CDs for this eventual portable media player I think I'm going to get. However, I've had a hard time coming to terms with a few things.

I have a machine with 4 cores and 4 optical drives, and I want all of them to work at the same time, so I can rip more discs faster.

I don't want to be tied to Windows or OS X. Actually, I don't mind being tied to OSX, but I can't really afford the hardware to rip the CDs efficiently under OS X. I like the iPod Touch. Rearlly, what I want is a player that will play .ogg files so I can be "free".

Just those two restrictions alone have been enough to make the decision hard. What software do I use? What device am I going to get? What format to I rip to? Being a Freedom Fighter is hard... every device uses .mp3, but the files are bigger, and there's the whold patent issue. Ripping to .mp3 on Linux involves "evil sorcery" that's easy enough, but not really what I want to do if I can avoid it. I thought about ripping to AAC/.m4a and using an iPod Touch, and my recent acquisition of a PowerBook makes this very attractive, but then there's the whole vendor lock-in issue.

I think I'm going to settle with Linux, and just try to find an MTP device I can live with, and I probably won't get an iPod just because of cost. Ripping to .mp3 is probably what I'll end up doing, I'd like to use Vorbis/.ogg, but I'm having a hard time finding a device that I really want that does it.

With all that decided, I had previously done some research on software on Linux for ripping CDs. Banshee recently went 1.0 and it's awesome. I put in 4 CDs and if there's information available, it rips the tracks and ejects the disc. If not, it just sits and waits. Unfortunately, it sat and waited on 2 out of the 10 discs I tried last night.

Sound Juicer works splendidly also, and picked up the discs that didn't automatically get track information in Banshee. Some sort of MusicBrainz interface... strange... since Banshee supposedly has MusicBrainz too... I'd just use SoundJuicer, but it wants me to actually select a single optical drive for ripping... no good for me.

I tried a few other apps, but Banshee was so easy and simple, I think I"m going to stick with it. Now I just need to find an media player that I can use with it. The Computer Geeks Discount Outlet had some old iRiver H10 devices for sale... maybe I can snag one of those. The iPod Touch lingers in my mind, but there's some "clones" that might work for me.