Listening to Audio CDs on FreeBSD

Today I received a CD from Convention CDs, the company that recorded my presentation at RSA 2006 last month. The company Web site is basically blank, but if you want to order a copy of my talk "Traffic-Centric Incident Response and Forensics" you can send email to sales at conventioncds dot com. My CD bears number CD 94-2006, which may be its product number. I get no compensation from these CDs.

I needed a way to listen to the CD in FreeBSD, so I decided to go a low-impact approach and use xmcd. I could not find a precompiled package, but after adding the packages needed for building the port I found the port a quick build. I had to run the following configuration routine before I could listen to CDs.

# /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xmcd/config/config.sh

Xmcd version 3.3.2 Configuration Program
Setting up for host: orr.taosecurity.com
----------------------------------------

*** CDDB(R) ACCESS CONFIGURATION ***

If your system has Internet connectivity and functional
domain name service (DNS), you should answer 'y' to the next
question.  If this system is not linked to the Internet at all,
then answer 'n'.

  Would you like to use the free Internet CDDB(R) service
  for album/track information? [y] n

Internet CDDB server access is disabled.
To enable it later, run the /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xmcd/config/config.sh
script again.


*** DRIVE CONFIGURATION ***

Configuring drive 0...

  Does this drive use a SCSI interface? [n] n

  Non-SCSI drives are currently supported only on the
  following platforms:

        BSDI/WindRiver BSD/OS
        Compaq/HP Tru64 UNIX, Digital UNIX
        FreeBSD
        HP-UX
        IBM AIX
        Linux
        NetBSD
        OpenBSD
        QNX
        SCO Open Server
        Sun Solaris

  Do you want to continue? [y] y

  Are you using the SCSI Emulation (ATAPI-CAM) interface? [n] 

  Enter device path: [/dev/acd0] 

  Please select a Device Interface Method:

  1.    SunOS/Solaris/Linux/QNX ioctl method
  2.    FreeBSD/NetBSD/OpenBSD ioctl method
  3.    IBM AIX IDE ioctl method
  4.    BSDI/WindRiver BSD/OS ATAPI
  5.    SCO Open Server ATAPI BTLD
  6.    Compaq/HP Tru64 UNIX, Digital UNIX ATAPI
  7.    HP-UX ATAPI
  8.    Linux SCSI Emulation for ATAPI drives
  9.    FreeBSD ATAPI-CAM for ATAPI drives
  q.    quit (abort configuration)

  Enter choice: [1] 2

  Is your drive on /dev/acd0 a multi-disc changer? [n] 
  Standard CD drives have a 2048-byte block size.
  Does this drive have a non-standard block size? [n] 

  The configuration disables these features:
  - The channel routing control.

  The CDDA configuration has been set as follows:
  - Extraction: FreeBSD ioctl
  - Playback:   Open Sound System (OSS)

  Creating the /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xmcd/config/acd0 file...

  Do you have more CD drives on your system? [n] 

Xmcd set-up is now complete.

Please read the DRIVES file supplied with the xmcd
distribution for hardware configuration information
about specific drives.

That was it. I can listen to audio CDs on FreeBSD now.