dcd: Dave's CD player
Installation instructions are in the file named INSTALL. The copying policy and license for use are in the file named COPYING. Known bugs are in the file called BUGS.
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What is it? -- dcd is a simple, command-line based CD player.
There was one simple premise behind the design of dcd: You want to listen to a CD.
That's it. You don't need to tie up a console, launch X Windows, or connect to the Internet to get music pounding out of your speakers as quickly as possible. So, unless you tell it otherwise, dcd will start a CD and get out of your way. It's programmable, intelligent, and has plenty of "cool" features, but they won't interfere with this goal.
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Building dcd
Simply typing `make' in the dcd source directory will usually work fine. If it doesn't, take a look at the Makefile with your favorite text editor. There are a few configurable things in there (like the location of your CD-ROM device, which defaults to /dev/cdrom).
Oh yeah, you'll need a 2.x Linux kernel. It should work on all 2.0 and later kernels, but I haven't tested it extensively. (I tend to use the most recent kernels, so it should always work there...)
If you're a Debian user, Lalo Martins tries to keep a current copy of dcd in the Debian package system. I don't know how it works, though, and if it's not current don't blame me.
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Using dcd:
dcd by itself starts the disk on track 1.
dcd 6 starts the disk at track 6. Substitute your favorite number.
dcd stop will stop the CD.
dcd eject will eject the CD tray (if your hardware supports it).
dcd info and dcd dir reports information on the entire disk.
dcd loop will loop, continually playing the disc or the tracks specified.
dcd (list of numbers) will do the same thing.
dcd random will randomly play tracks from the CD, natch.
There's a few other less-used options detailed in the man page (like help).
All parameters can be shortened to their first letter; dcd i is just as good as dcd info. GNU fanatics can put a dash in front of options (getting dcd -i or dcd -info) too.
Looping is a bit tricky, mostly because Linux's sleep() call depends somewhat on how heavily the system is loaded. The last few seconds of a track may be cut off, or the first few seconds of the next track may be played before the next selected track starts. If this is a serious problem, look at the Makefile; there's a switch there just for you.
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UGLY LEGAL STUFF
This program is (C) 1998-2001 David E. Smith, and covered by the GNU GPL. See the file `COPYING' for details.
The CD Index algorithm is described at http://www.freeamp.org/cdindex/ and in fact I browsed heavily through their reference implementation to do mine.
base64.c is (C)1988 Leland Stanford Junior University, (C) 1998 University of Washington. See that file for more information.
sha.c was contributed to the public domain by someone listed in that file. The headers in that file are so bloody confusing, I can't sort it out.
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Think dcd sucks? Tell me about it at <dave@technopagan.org>.