DVD Backups

[regeya]

Ed Fletcher Wrote: 
> Hi All:
> 
> I'm wondering what software you use to make . . . um . . . backups of 
> DVDs under Ubuntu.  I've tried to install dvdrip with Synaptic.  It's 
> under Status > New in repository.  (Haven't seen that classification 
> before.)  But it fails and reports that dvdrip depends on transcode, 
> which will not be installed.  So I tried to install transcode first,
> but 
> that fails and reports that:
> 
> Could not mark all packages for installation or upgrade.  The following
> 
> packages have unresolvable dependencies.  Make sure that all required 
> repositories are added and enabled in preferences.
> 
> transcode:
> Depends: libavifile-0.7c102 but it is not installable
> Depends: libjasper-1.701-1 but it is not installable
> Depends: libpng12-0 but 1.2.5.0-7ubuntu1 is to be installed
> Depends: libquicktime1 but it is not going to be installed

I wrote a...shall we say...-controversial-Lazy DVD Backup HOWTO a while
back.  Basically, it involves installing dvdbackup, wine, winesetuptk,
and k3b from Hoary and using Wine to run DVD Shrink.  There should be
better alternatives out there, but none of them are all that intuitive.
:(

I managed to install transcode without much wankery.  Well, since
you're not familiar with Debian, you probably won't find that to be
true, but essentially, I added Hoary to my /etc/apt/sources.list, along
with the marillat sources, as well as Debian Unstable.  Now, to keep
that from all being a big mess, I pinned Warty at the highest priority,
Hoary a bit lower, the marillat sources a bit lower than that, and
Debian Sid at the lowest priority.  I wish I'd written down more
details, because I seem to recall having to build some deps from
source.  There are instructions all over ubuntuforums.org on such
things, and I suggest that you search for them since repeating them
isn't wise and since the search feature is there to aid in your quest
to find answers. :D  The best I can tell you is that I used apt-get 
install when possible, -t hoary when I could, 

I'd prefer to not give step-by-step instructions on this, since you
really should know what you're doing before you attempt anything so
insane as mixing sources for different releases and distributions, but
I will say that my system is running very smoothly and I managed to get
transcode to install, finally.  It's not clean, and the Ubuntu devs will
scream about me completely destroying any hope of a clean upgrade to
Hoary Hedgehog when it's released, but hey, it's my system and since I
recognized that Warty was an early Ubuntu release, I shrugged and went
about fixing problems I had with the system.  Now I can run gDesklets
with no problem if I wish, I can burn CDs and DVDs, and all sorts of
things that I probably could have lived without, but I wouldn't want
to.

This road to mixed sources isn't a pleasurable little trip, mind you. 
Sometimes mixing sources out of order can cause breakage, requiring you
to sometimes re-install things from other sources, sometimes uninstall
and reinstall large numbers of packages, and on rare occasion build
packages from source.  If this scares you, don't do it and move on to a
distribution that does everything you want to do today.  I'm betting
that by the time Hoary Hedgehog comes out, there will be repositories
specific to Hoary and all will be well in the world of Ubuntu.  For
now, your options are to grin and bear it (just do without, in other
words), try to make packages from other repositories work, attempt to
build the software you need, or run off and use another distribution/OS
that can do everything you need to do.

And whatever you do, don't -even- ask how I managed to get
libvorbis-1.1 working on my Ubuntu box. ;)


-- 
regeya