A native Linux desktop app bringing the CUETools 2026 experience to Linux: rip CDs with calibrated assurance, verify rips against AccurateRip and the CUETools Database, repair damaged rips from CTDB parity, and convert between lossless formats. Same engine as the Windows build, same evidence discipline, in a package a fraction of the size.
Status: built, unreleased, and not yet recommended for strangers. Twelve slices are complete with evidence, from verification through ripping to database contribution, and the app has reached page parity with the Windows head. There is no published release yet. See Known limitations before trying it.
| Capability | State |
|---|---|
| Verify a rip against AccurateRip and CTDB | Built, evidenced |
| Repair a damaged rip from CTDB parity | Built, evidenced on a real scratched disc |
| Convert between lossless formats | Built, evidenced across FLAC, ALAC, APE, WavPack |
| Batch queue for verify and convert | Built, evidenced |
| Rip a CD, including secure and Test and Copy modes | Built, evidenced on three drives |
| Metadata and cover-art enrichment | Built, evidenced |
| Offline journal and automatic backfill | Built, evidenced |
| Share a verified rip with the CUETools Database, by consent | Built, one live submission confirmed by independent lookup |
| Settings page, including privacy and consent controls | Built, evidenced |
| Guided recovery when a USB drive wedges mid-rip | Built, evidenced live on a real wedge (twice in one day) |
| Report, Naming editor, Drive & Read, Advanced, and How a CD Works pages | Built, render-evidenced |
| Keep-awake during rips (systemd sleep inhibitor) | Built, evidenced live |
| Elegant layout under OS display scaling, 100 to 200 percent | Built; the scale matrix gates it in CI, owner-walked live on GNOME |
Every claim above traces to a slice brief in docs/ with its own evidence
section. Nothing here is inferred from a screenshot.
Read these before installing. They are why there is no release yet.
- The current binary needs glibc 2.38 or newer, so it does not start on Ubuntu 22.04 or Debian 12 even though those are the intended floor. The floor is a build-machine artifact, not a code requirement; the fix is a build-environment change. See F-38 in the findings.
- The first public preview is now an owner go/no-go: the technical gate (D-065, guided drive recovery) was met on 2026-08-19 with a live wedge and a live cure. Until the owner calls it, build from source.
| File | What it is |
|---|---|
| docs/ARCHITECTURE.md | The puzzle: modules, interfaces, data flow, technology, extension points |
| docs/ENGINEERING.md | The rules: requirements, data model, security, standards, verification, definition of done |
| docs/DECISION-LOG.md | Every significant choice, its reasoning, and its revisit trigger (D-001 onward) |
| docs/SLICE-013-fractional-scaling.md | The latest closed slice: elegant layout under OS display scaling |
| docs/TRIAGE.md | Project triage card and unknowns list |
| docs/RESEARCH-2026-08-11.md | The landscape and framework research this design stands on |
Agents and contributors read the documents before working. The active slice brief is the build boundary; the Decision Log is the only path for changing a recorded decision.
The engine and the shared app core are owned by LynxTWO/cuetools_2026 and consumed here as a pinned dependency. Contracts and assurance invariants flow from that fork; this repository never patches them locally.
GPL-2.0-or-later, matching the engine. See LICENSE.