Translating the Debian install instructions to tor network use, we have:
torsocks wget https://apt.benthetechguy.net/benthetechguy-archive-keyring.gpg -O /usr/share/keyrings/benthetechguy-archive-keyring.gpg
echo "deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/benthetechguy-archive-keyring.gpg] tor://apt.benthetechguy.net/debian bookworm non-free" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/benthetechguy.list
apt update
apt install makemkv
apt update yields:
Ign:9 tor+https://apt.benthetechguy.net/debian bookworm InRelease
Ign:9 tor+https://apt.benthetechguy.net/debian bookworm InRelease
Ign:9 tor+https://apt.benthetechguy.net/debian bookworm InRelease
Err:9 tor+https://apt.benthetechguy.net/debian bookworm InRelease
Connection failed [IP: 127.0.0.1 9050]
Turns out apt.benthetechguy.net is jailed in Cloudflare. And apparently the code is not developed out in the open – there is no public code repo or even a bug tracker. Even the forums are a bit exclusive (registration on a particular host is required and disposable email addresses are refused). There is no makemkv IRC channel (according to netsplit.de).
There is a blurb somewhere that the author is looking to get MakeMKV into the official Debian repos and is looking for a sponsor (someone with a Debian account). But I wonder if this project would even qualify for the non-free category. Debian does not just take any non-free s/w… it’s more for drivers and the like.
Alternatives?
The reason I looked into #makemkv was that Handbrake essentially forces users into a long CPU-intensive transcoding process. It cannot simply rip the bits as they are. MakeMKV relieves us of transcoding at the same time as ripping. But getting it is a shit show.
Hey I finished my ripping guide and ended up writing my own script which uses only libre software (dvdbackup, lsdvd, mkvmerge and jq). Worked great for my collection of ~350 dvd. Check it out!
thanks!
Though I should mention my original motivation with makemkv was to rip blu-ray discs, which has complications that go beyond DVD. But the DVD guide will still be quite useful.
If you find out a way of ripping blu-rays with libre software or find some tools that look like they could be assembled to solve the issue, do share! I don’t feel like doing it myself for now because I have only 5 blu-rays but maybe it would be simple to change my existing script to adapt to blu-ray. Have you tried using dvdbackup or lsdvd on a blu-ray? Both programs rely on libdvdread, maybe it works on blu-ray too. In that case I think it wouldn’t be too hard to adapt dvd2mkv to blu-ray.
I have not tried much of anything yet. I just got a cheap laptop with a BD which came with Windows and VLC. I popped in a blu-ray disc from the library and it could not handle it… something about not having a aacs decoder or something like that. I didn’t spend any time on it yet but ultimately in principle I would install debian and try to liberate the drive to read BDs.
Was MakeMKV ever claimed to be open source?
Not sure if it’s exactly what you want but I’ve used MKVtoolnix in the past for .mkv operations, worked fine for me. And ffmpeg also works great for general audio/video stuff though I’ve never tried bluray -> .mkv with it.