Notes from a local Linux users group meeting a couple months back, with comments from my own experiences.

There are quite a few tools available to the Linux user for working with audio files.

Ripping: grip
sudo apt-get install grip

Edit ID3 tag info: easytag
sudo apt-get install easytag

Make an ISO image: mkisofs -R -J -o <file>.iso ./
jouliet, rockridge – extensions to ISO960 to allow long filenames

Burn: cdrecord

Get internet content (think RealPlayer): trplayer (url)

Wrap and record any stream: vsound -n -t
sudo apt-get install vsound

Convert au -> mp3: lame

Find Streams: streamtuner
sudo apt-get install streamtuner
“streamtuner is a stream directory browser.”¹ streamtuner lets you browse SHOUTcast, Live365, and other streaming music services. It even provides the same clean interface to your local music collection. I always had trouble connecting some streams through their respective web interfaces, and even Winamp plugins, but no trouble whatsoever with streamtuner.

Setup is easy; under Edit -> Preferences add the path to your local music collection under General, and check the defaults under Applications. I changed my “Record a stream” command to x-terminal-emulator -e streamripper %q -d /tmp/foo -r.

Record Streaming MP3s: streamripper
sudo apt-get install streamripper
Interfaces very nicely with streamtuner. Unlike vlc (or at least my limited knowledge of it), streamripper will automagically break the stream into appropriately ID3-tagged tracks.

Manage (and host) music: slimserver

Edit MP3s: xmpgedit

sudo apt-get install audacity works great and is easy to use.
It wanted libmp3lame.so to do the actual mp3 encoding; /usr/lib/libmp3lame.so.0 worked just great.

I also tried ecawave, but that wasn’t as easy to use.

Players:
vlc
Using acodec=mp3 doesn’t work for me, but mpga works fine. Now, how to add ID3 tag info and set the duration I want it to record for?

vlc –http-caching 5000 mms://stream.name –sout=”#transcode{acodec=mpga,ab=128,channels=2}
:duplicate{dst=display,dst=std{access=file,mux=raw,url=”/tmp/VLCOutput.mp3″}}”

Also:
http://www.amb.org/xmcd/
http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~mbayer/tools/dekagen.html

And a much more complete list:
http://tldp.org/HOWTO/MP3-HOWTO-7.html