WHAT IS RIP?
============

The file "rip" is a perl script which must be executable to work
correctly. If it is not in this state, do a "chmod 755 rip". It
is a wrapper for rippers and encoders which provides a common
interface for ripping any CD audio track and encoding it into
MP3, Ogg Vorbis, or FLAC. Manual and CDDB based renaming schemes 
are available for naming and tagging your ripped tracks.


WHAT ARE THESE OTHER TARBALLS FOR?
===================================

The CDDB/CDDB_get perl module tarball is included for convenience's sake
as it is not likely to be common, yet, and makes the rip script
that much more enjoyable. It needs to be available on your system 
before rip will even run, so install those perl module tarballs first
before you do anything else. Installation is easy, at the prompt do:

tar xzvf CDDB_get-1.66.tar.gz
cd CDDB_get-1.66
perl Makefile.PL
make
su -c "make install"

That should untar it, cd into the new dir, create something
makeable, make it, and have  root  run the command "make install"
to install it.

A similar set of commands can be used on the MP3-Info-0.91.tar.gz 
tarball to install that perl module as well. This module is used
by rip to do tagging of MP3 files.


INSTALLATION
============

The installation of rip is simple and covered in the file INSTALLING.
First, make sure you have the modules CDDB_get and MP3::Info installed.
Then, installing rip boils down to a "cp" or "mv" of the file "rip" 
to some place on your $PATH. If you are root, go ahead and place it 
in /bin or in /usr/bin. It's that simple. If you are not root, put
it where ever you feel is best. Perhaps in ~/bin/. Where ever you 
feel like, as long as it is on your $PATH.

You need, at minimum, cdparanoia and one of: bladeenc, lame, or gogo
installed on your system to rip MP3s. If you want to rip to Ogg Vorbis
you need the *newest* oggenc from www.vorbis.com installed. If you want
to rip to flac, then you'll need the newest FLAC from flac.sourceforge.net
I'm assuming that you will install CDDB_get since I'm providing the 
tarball for you: it provides the online CDDB lookup -c/--cddb functionality. 
I am also assuming you'll install the MP3-Info tarball; that provides tagging 
ability for MP3s and FLACs. Tagging for Ogg Vorbis is provided by the encoder 
itself: oggenc. 


SUPPORTED RIPPERS/ENCODERS
==========================

Currently, rip supports the following list of CD, MP3, Ogg Vorbis,
FLAC, CDDB tools, and tagging tools:

cdparanoia
cdda2wav
bladeenc
lame
gogo
oggenc
flac
notlame
CDDB_get.pm
MP3::Info

If you're favorite isn't on the list, just let me know and I'll see
what I can do. I'm trying to not make rip too bloated (it is already
some 2500 lines long after all!) so hopefully this list will be
enough to satisfy the majority.


FINAL NOTES
===========

Once rip is on your $PATH, a "rip --help" will help you learn the
flags and get you going on ripping your CD collection. It'll
also warn you if you do not have something important installed
on your system.

If your new to rip, I suggest using the lazy or superlazy
rip modes. I use them myself to handle ripping the whole CD,
naming the files via CDDB, and creating the directory
structure to store files in.

Just remember "rip -S" is your friend. Er, somethin'...

If you experience any problems, please read the FAQ before
emailing me. If you find a bug, or cannot figure out something
about rip, you can email me at [email protected].

In any case, have a pleasurable rip.

Greg