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authorB. Watson <yalhcru@gmail.com>2020-05-07 12:55:48 -0400
committerB. Watson <yalhcru@gmail.com>2020-05-07 12:55:48 -0400
commit6ba11c343ac6d60f45fcad98aab5e16982e78f50 (patch)
tree45332fa438721c49f69673b0bc2a4c32cd3c2357 /FAQ
parentf1384daebe3c4a86e57b90cc3e955a7757ce327e (diff)
downloadmiragextract-6ba11c343ac6d60f45fcad98aab5e16982e78f50.tar.gz
add FAQ, ChangeLog, install target
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+miragextract FAQ (sort-of)
+--------------------------
+
+These are not really 'frequently asked', because nobody's asked me a
+single question about miragextract yet (it's brand new). Maybe this
+should be called the SAQ (Someday Asked Questions) or the NYAQ (Not Yet
+Asked Questions).
+
+Q1. How does miragextract work?
+A1. Basically, miragextract is a command-line wrapper for libmirage,
+plus 'glue' to connect it to libsndfile. These libraries do all the
+real work.
+
+Q2. Why did you write it?
+A1. There are a lot of little tools made to convert various CD image
+formats to something useful. Most of them just convert to ISO, meaning
+they don't handle audio tracks. Each image format has its own tool, and
+a lot of them are old and unmaintained so they don't keep up with changes
+in the proprietary formats. The libmirage developers gave us a wonderful
+library, but previously the only way to use it was to use cdemu, which
+works great but requires root privileges, uses an out-of-tree kernel
+module, and only works on Linux. I thought it'd be nice to have a simple
+tool that's at leat potentially portable, so here it is.
+
+Q3. What would I use miragextract for?
+A3. Well, I use it for extracting ISO images and audio files from old game
+CDs, for use with modern game engines (e.g. Raze or NBlood), or sometimes
+just to listen to the audio tracks. You can use it for anything you want
+(it's licensed WTFPL, so that means *anything*).
+
+Q4. Why is there no '-f mp3' option?
+A4. Because I use libsndfile to write the audio files, and its developer
+has chosen not to include mp3 support. If you really need mp3 (if ogg and/or
+flac just won't satisfy you), you can always convert to wav and use any
+mp3 converter (lame, ffmpeg, etc). Someday I may actually add lame support
+to miragextract, but don't hold your breath.
+
+Q5. Why do my extracted audio tracks sound like white noise?
+A5. Try the -s flag. If you're on a big-endian platform and you have this
+issue, I'd like to hear from you (email address found in README).
+
+Q6. This track01.iso I just extracted isn't an ISO, it's a Macintosh DMG.
+How come it's got .iso in the filename?
+A6. There's no way for miragextract to tell what type of image a data
+track actually contains. Adding support for this would be possible,
+but it's not there yet. Currently, the file will get called .iso because
+that's what most images contain. Just rename it if it's wrong.
+
+Q7. I built a static binary of miragextract, but it fails (or still requires
+shared libraries). Why?
+A7. libmirage uses a plugin system for supporting the various formats it
+knows about. This means it's basically impossible to compile libmirage
+statically, so miragextract can't really be static either. It's probably
+possible to make it work with an appropriate invocation of 'statifier'
+but I haven't tried this yet.
+
+Q8. Does it work on Windows, OSX, FreeBSD, ...?
+A8. In principle, there's nothing Linux-specific in miragextract, libmirage,
+or libsndfile. Porting to other OSes will require more knowledge of those OSes
+(and more time) than I currently have available, but I'll accept patches.
+
+Q9. Can I use it with real CDs?
+A9. No. libmirage doesn't support reading real CDs. Use regular CD-ripping
+software to get audio tracks, and 'dd' to extract an iso image.