1 Frequently Asked Questions
7 Q: What is the copyright status of icedax?
9 A: icedax is software copyrighted by Heiko Eissfeldt and others, and
10 released under the General Public License from the Free Software
11 Foundation (see file GPL).
17 Q: What are the requirements to run icedax?
19 A: All operating systems that are supported by wodim should also be able to
20 run icedax. Currently DOS and Windows are not covered.
21 Requirements of previous versions of icedax have been cut down for the
22 sake of portability. Features like fork(), realtime scheduling, or shared
23 memory are all optional now. You need Cmake and its dependencies, an
24 ANSI C compiler and a C library to build icedax
25 on a supported operating system. To run icedax, a SCSI transport
26 implementation for the os, a cdrom or cd burner device to read from, and
27 at least say 65K of memory for buffers are needed.
30 Q: Why does it not compile under Linux, although I am using the newest kernel?
32 A: There have been changes in the generic driver by Douglas Gilbert, that are
33 in its first release not compatible with the scsi library from Joerg
34 Schilling. We are working on this problem...
35 In the meantime better do not use this variant, use the older one instead.
38 Q: Why does it not compile using standard make?
40 A: Like wodim, icedax uses the cmake system, which requires a
41 sophisticated make program like GNU make.
42 Pure posix make functionality is not enough.
44 Setting Up (for now Linux only)
45 ===============================
48 Q: Should I use scsi emulation or the eide driver for my ATAPI cdrom drive?
50 A: Scsi emulation is preferred, since it enables icedax to use more commands
51 and is often the only way to get special information like track titles with
52 cd-text. The emulation module is called ide-scsi, the eide module is called
56 Q: How can I use my parallel-port-connected cdrom with icedax?
58 A: Under Linux there is a driver, that makes this device under SCSI
59 emulation available. For more information see the wodim documentation.
62 Q: How do I check, if the current Linux kernel does support generic SCSI?
64 A: run 'cat /proc/devices | grep "21 sg"' and see, if a line with 'sg' appears.
65 If it does not appear, the current kernel is not able to use the generic_scsi
66 interface. If you have generic SCSI support compiled as a module, see next
67 question, otherwise you need to recompile the kernel and enable generic SCSI.
68 You might try to use the 'cooked_ioctl' interface as a last resort, but then
69 you need to supply a cdrom device with -D (like -D/dev/cdrom). In this case
70 icedax completely relies on the cdda reading methods from the kernel
71 driver, so it might not work (due to unsupported).
74 Q: How do I load the generic SCSI module by hand?
76 A: run 'insmod sg' and check the result (see above).
79 Q: How do I find the device setting for my drive?
81 A: Under Linux use the script scan_scsi.Linux. It prints the available devices
82 and their respective device option to be used.
83 Be aware of the fact that the generic device naming may change whenever the
84 devices on the SCSI bus change (present or not present).
86 General usage (sampling)
87 ========================
90 Q: How do I record the whole cd, each track in a seperate file?
92 A: Use the '-B' option. This will automagically create a file for each track.
95 Q: How do I record the whole cd into one file?
97 A: Just extend the default recording time from one track to a big enough
98 time in seconds to cover the whole cd (like -d99999).
101 Q: How do I record successive tracks (a track range) into seperate files?
103 A: Use the '-B' option and -t<first tracknumber>+<last track number>.
106 Q: How do I record successive tracks (a track range) into one file?
108 A: Use -t<first tracknumber>+<last track number>.
111 Q: How do I record different tracks into seperate files with individual file
114 A: Use the supplied script 'readmult'. For usage see the comments at the
115 beginning of the script.
118 Q: How can I get the highest speed out of icedax?
120 A: See the file README. There is a section about performance and what is
124 Q: How can I burn audio cds with icedax and wodim on-the-fly?
126 A: This has not been tested very well, so caveat emptor. It is possible to
127 use icedax and wodim with pipes, _but_ there are several issues.
128 1.: The cd drive may become too slow to keep wodim's buffer happy, when
129 a scratch on the audio cd is encountered, and several retries take place.
130 2.: Currently there is no way to carry individual track information from
131 icedax to wodim. Several information bits are available very late
132 but are needed in advance from wodim.
133 3.: Some operating systems have limitations in multiple SCSI accesses and
134 other resources (shared memory). icedax and wodim may block each
135 other, or might fight over limited resources.
136 For these reasons it is not recommended to burn on-the-fly with icedax.
142 Q: Which frontends for icedax are available?
144 A: See the file 'Frontends'. There are command line and graphical frontends.
146 Album and track titles
147 ======================
150 Q: Does icedax support titles from cd extra (aka cd plus aka enhanced cd)?
152 A: In general, yes. In order to get this information, icedax needs to read
153 a data sector from the second session of the cd. This requires multisession
154 support and the capability to read XA sectors. The titles are printed on the
155 screen and written into the inf files, then.
158 Q: Does icedax support titles from cd-text?
160 A: Newer versions support the most important features of cd-text like titles
161 and creators. Non-supported are currently 16-bit characters, so asian
162 titles etc. are currently not available.
165 Q: Does icedax support CDDB ids?
167 A: Yes, while it does not make CDDB lookups itself, it supplies an cddb file
168 with the table of contents and the cddb id. For cddb lookups see the
169 perl script tracknames.pl and tracknames.txt. If the titles are known to
170 icedax, it fills the titles itself in the cddb file.
175 A: The media catalog number is an unique id for the audio cd release. It is
176 similar to the ISBN for books, but unfortunately it is included only on
182 A: The International Standard Record Code is an unique id for a track. Like the
183 MCN (see above) it is an optional item.
189 Q: Does icedax support on-the-fly mp3-coding?
191 A: Yes. As of version 1.9alpha I integrated the LAME encoding engine as a new
193 To support external encoders, I added two scripts. The trick
194 is to avoid big temporary files. There are three versions (cdda2mp3.file,
195 cdda2mp3.pipe, and cdda2mp3.fifo), the first using files, the second uses
196 pipes, and the last uses a named pipe (also called fifo). The examples
197 use the Fraunhofer encoder 'l3enc', which is a commercial product and has
198 to be purchased seperately. Other encoders should be usable in a similar way.
204 Q: How do I create a file suitable for cd burning?
206 A: If you are using wodim, you can produce cdr or wav files. To select
207 cdr files, use -Ocdr, to select wav files use -Owav (the default).
208 Audio files that have been recorded with a length not a multiple of the
209 audio sector size 2352 bytes, should be used with wodim's -pad option.
212 Q: How do I convert a wav file into a cdr file (my other cd burning program
213 does not accept wav format)?
215 A: Use 'dd if=wavfile of=cdrfile conv=swab ibs=44 skip=1 obs=2352'
218 Q: How to convert cdr to wav?
220 A: Use sox, the sound utility. It supports other formats as well.
226 Q: Does icedax support the pre-emphasis bit?
228 A: If the table of contents marks a track as pre-emphasized, the corresponding
229 inf file will have this information, too. That enables a cd burning program
230 to retain the state of the track.
233 Q: Can icedax undo the pre-emphasis effect in the samples?
235 A: Yes, if the -T option is given (and cd quality is selected),
236 icedax filters the samples with the reverse emphasis on-the-fly. This has
237 been checked with a sine sweep from a pre-emphasized test cd.
240 Q: My cdrom delivers the stereo channels swapped. How can I undo this?
242 A: Use the -cs option.
245 Q: Does icedax support indices?
247 A: Yes, but since there are positioning problems with a lot of drives,
248 information might be inaccurate. A start index can be specified with the
249 -i option. To get all indices, use the -v7 option.
252 Q: Can icedax avoid including the pre-gap region at the end of the track?
254 A: Currently not. This might be added later, but is not easily done.
257 Q: How can I get all information about the cd without writing files?
259 A: Use the -J option, which switches analysis to the max, and aborts after
263 Q: Can icedax display/save the graphics on my CD+graphics disc?
265 A: No, this is not planned. A seperate X11 program could do that probably
269 Q: Can icedax read the audio portion from my CD-I/Video-CD/DVD mpeg streams?
271 A: No, these are special formats, which require much more effort.
273 User support/feedback
274 =====================
277 Q: icedax is great. How can I support you to encourage further development?
279 A: Look into the file NEEDED. Also constructive criticism and feedback is
283 Q: I want to port cdrkit (wodim/genisoimage/icedax) to a new platform (like
284 DJGPP,cygwin,os/2). How should I proceed?
286 A: It would be convenient to have a unix like environment (like cygwin provides)
287 A shell, and a make program would be needed to first create smake (in order
288 to make the makefile system working). Another critical component is autoconf.
289 Once that is running, os dependent interfaces and the SCSI library should be
290 adjusted. For the makefile system and the scsi library please contact Joerg
294 Q: icedax sucks. Are there other alternatives available?
296 A: Yes, for Linux you might try 'cdparanoia' from Monty (see README file).