I've switched to this program after my problems with iTunes and like it
very much. You can run it manually or put it in your crontab to run
whenever you want it to run.
Downloading
the program can be downloaded from
http://ftp.debian.org/debian/pool/main/p/podracer_1.4.orig.tar.gz
You also need curl, screen and bittorrent installed; I know these are in
both fink
and Darwinports. Installing Darwinports and/or fink is not within the
scope of this particular explanation. If you try running the installer and
one of these programs is missing, you will receive a message telling you
what necessary program is not installed.
Unpacking the .tar.gz file
Move the tar.gz file to wherever you want to unpack it. I am here using
sudo in front of commands that require root permissions but you can also
use 'su" and then do all subsequent commands as root.
sudo tar xvzf podracer_1.4.orig.tar.gz (sudo may not be necessary for this
command
depending on where you are unpacking it).
Editing the installer file
(I'm using emacs in this example; follow procedures for your text editor
of choice.)
cd podracer-1.4
sudo emacs installer
Search for the line:
if test ! $(find /usr -name bitTorrent)
and change the path from /usr to
whereever your bittorrent is located; for instance, mine is in
/opt/local/bin so I just changed /usr to /opt.
Running the installer:
sudo ./installer install
and podracer and timeout should be installed; timeout is packaged with
podracer so you needn't go looking for it separately.
Editing the /usr/bin/podracer file (may not be necessary)
Read this section carefully before proceeding; you may be able to skip
most or all of these instructions.
1. Omitting uname -o from /usr/bin/podracer:
search for a line:
longname="$progname v4version; $(uname -o) $uname -m)"
and remove the $(uname -o but leave the $(uname -m. Because uname -o
is not an
option with the uname on the Mac, you'll get a complaining message when
you run podracer if you don't do this but it won't keep
podracer from working.
2. Search for the line:
rmdir --ignore-fail-on-non-empty "$poddir/$feeddir"
There is no --ignore-fail-on-non-empty option in the standard rmdir on the
mac so go to the end of this line
and add on to it
>/dev/null 2.&1 (note the & is an ampersand not the
word and).
this again wouldn't keep podracer from working but causes nag messages
about the usage of rmdir.
3. If you don't have /bin/bash on your computer, you will have to change
this script to run in /bin/sh. You probably do have /bin/bash so check
this before proceeding.
a. In the first line, change bash to sh.
b. In each line where the word 'source" (without the quotes of course)
appears at the beginning of the line, you must replace the word source
with a dot (period). But only do this where the word source is the first
occurrence in the line.
You can use your editor of choice; here's how it's done in vim as that
example was given me.
sudo vim /usr/bin/podracer
:%s/source/.
(Note this is a vim command not just something to be copied to the file,
but if you aren't familiar with vim you probably will choose a different
editor anyway.)
(Note: while the instructions I received about this seemed to stress
changing source only when the first occurrence in a line, it appears to me
that all instances of the word end up being changed; I'm not absolutely
certain of this though).
/etc/podracer.conf
look at your /etc/podracer.conf and see if you want to make any changes.
by default, your podcasts will end up in /Users/(username)/podcasts/(date)
(your username; the date on which you are downloading). Your program
directory, where
your subscriptions file will be located along with your podracer.log and
partial downloads during the process, will be in your home directory as
.podracer (note the dot in front). You can change the /etc/podracer.conf
or can copy it to .podracer/podracer.conf in your home directory and make
changes there, but if you move it and haven't run podracer yet you will
have to first create your .podracer directory. Once you start podracer,
the directory will be created so don't bother unless you are copying the
podracer.conf file.
Subscriptions file
You can create the subscriptions file (usually in your home directory
as .podracer/subscriptions) with your favorite text editor. Each
line will contain the url for your podcast feed; optionally, you can then
leave a space and specify a directory into which the podcasts from this
feed will be downloaded. Note that the directory you specify will be under
/Users/(username)/podcasts/(date) unless you've changed this. So, for
instance, you would enter:
http://nonexistentpodcastfeed.com/CommandLineChronicles /CLC
and your feeds from this fictional feed for January 3 2007 would end up in
/users/(username)/podcasts/2007-01-03/CLC. However, if you don't want
separate directories, it isn't necessary to specify a download directory;
you can also specify a download directory for some urls and not for
others.
Usage
Warning for first-time run: By default, this program downloads
all (and I do mean
ALL0 available episodes; I got podcasts I never ever got with iTunes even
when I told it to download all episodes. So you may want to run podracer
the first time as
podracer -c
By doing this, you allow podracer to download the urls of available
podcasts into your podracer.log but no actual podcasts are downloaded.
then you can remove any urls from the log of podcasts you really wish to
download and run podracer again without the -c option. Since urls in the
log will not be re-downloaded, from then on you can run podracer without
the -c option and will only get new podcasts. If you do not do this and
you have a lot of subscriptions, you could get LOTS OF PODCASTS; this is
fine if you want them and have the space for them.
Also, if you haven't made a subscriptions file and you run podracer,
you'll
be asked if you want a sample subscriptions file; if you say "y" the
sample file will be copied to your .podracer directory and if you haven't
used the -c option, I can guarantee you that you are in for a HUGE
download.
While downloading is in progress, you can go into another terminal window
and do
more .podracer/podracer.log
periodically to see the progress or, unless you are running with the -c
option, just check into your podcasts directory to see what new mp3s are
being downloaded.
As mentioned earlier, you could put this in your crontab or otherwise
automate it if you want it run on a regular basis.
I like this program because it gives me total control of my downloads,
additions, deletions, and file organization.
Feel free to post questions to the list or contact me at
[EMAIL PROTECTED] no guarantee I have the answers, but will do my best
to help.
--
Cheryl
"Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."
