Attached a BlueRay drive in a 5.25" external desktop housing, via USB 3.2 gen 1 connection;
Wondering what "ASTM ASM105x" is (who should I be talking to?)
jus' wonderin'
john
This identifies as
Asmedia SATA/USB controller device.
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So far, so good;
However:
With fre:ac v1.1.7, Ripping Audio CD to .flac
... hangs about half-way through rip
Started checking for firmware updates:
Unfortunately, OEM websites only offer .exe files
Installed BluRay drives:
LG BH16NS40 (dev/sr1)
LG BH16NS50 (dve/sr0)
Also on-hand (not installed):
Asus DRW-24D5MT (DVD+/- RW DL)
Lite-on DH-16D7SH11B F/W WL3B (DVD ROM)
Phillips Lite -on iHAS124 E (DVD+R DL)
Also:
Still-in-the-box:
Savio (Elmak - Poland) AK-43 (External "Slimline" USB 2)
...Not a big fan; with over 350CDs to rip (and some DSD/DVD sountracks)
the slimlines tend to burn out their plastic lenses.
May end up going through the gymnastics of swapping-out drives, one at a time...
(although BDs tend to have much more cache)
Best Advice?
Thank you,
john
fwiw, Tried to find external 5.25" ODD housing with both eSATA and USB 3.2...
in Poland, blank stares...
best I could find here, "IcyBox" USB 3 only(3.0"A" to 3.0"B") (also fabricated 12VDC power cable from O/B PSU)
...not sure that the difference between USB 3.2(gen 1) and eSATA would make much of a difference
In order to close out this discussion,
After a few postings on the fre:ac forum, over the last few days, with no response,
Have purged fre:ac from my machine and, upon the advice of @Aravisian , went back to Asunder (DSD/DVD rips will be another project, later, most likely with fre:ac/Handbrake)
So far, Asunder rips have performed flawlessly;
Evidently there were no issues with my PC/hardware
Aside: for the pseudo audiophiles;
Asunder allows to "rip" at 0 (zero) compression.
Why? (shorter rip times aside)
While .flac files were designed to losslessly compress, in order to save HDD/SSD/NVMe drive space,
(there are myriad compression protocols, all with pros and cons; for the last couple of decades, .flac has been my reliable standard, fwiw)
Saving drive space was not a priority; for my purposes, with 2TB "home" drive available (actually, 1.8TB) "real estate" space was not an issue.
The primary reason for .flac was, instead of ".wav" files (also "lossless"), is the feature of ".flac" files metadata/tagging (Artist, Album, song name, track no. Album Art, etc.) features.
Aside from the standard of CDDB searches/updates(for the aforementioned metadata), MusicBrainz Picard appears to be a potent tool (also recommended by @Aravisian ... many thanks 
)
While this posting has wandered FAR beyond the scope of Zorin OS help Forum,
Zorin (Linux, Ubuntu, etc.), while avoiding "promoting" specific software packages (with some exceptions) offers an almost overwhelming smorgasbord of options.
Suffice it for this writer to conclude:
After endless(bordering on neurotic) hours of research, I have concluded the best audio setup, for this writer:
Asunder
Exaile
MusicBrainz - Picard (metadata/tagging)
and, eventually,
Handbrake (DVD rips)
fre:ac (DSD rips)
Figuring out the ideal VLC layout (for me) will take considerable, "neurotic" hours.
(somewhat, for this 66 year old brain, replicating the WMP layout, preconditioned by 50 years of driving, on the "right-hand side of the road", with Microsoft)...
There are untold minions that swear by VLC... even Foobar2000 (Win only???)
My greatest thanks to the heroically patient assistance of the Zorin Forum.
fwiw,
john
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