Music collection
I currently use "abcde" for ripping CD's. It's doing most of what I need now thanks to careful tuning of the .abcde.conf file.
I started using "grip" to convert my discs to audio files a long time ago when it came with Ubuntu. They dropped it from Ubuntu but I still used it by compiling from source.
I experimented with using FLAC but found it was not working in the Logitech Mediaserver. Instead of continuing to fight with it I opted to bump up the quality on the rip for my CD's.
All my players handle FLAC. Oh well.
Grip
I use a locally compiled version of grip. Version 3.3.1 compiled on Ubuntu 14.10
Download from: http://sourceforge.net/projects/grip/
Build
sudo apt-get install lame cdparanoia \ libgnomeui-dev libghc-vte-dev curl libcurl4-openssl-dev ./configure make -j 6 sudo make install
vte is a terminal widget
Configure
Currently I just keep all the files in a folder hierarchy. I tried keeping a MySQL database but found that I never used it.
Device is /dev/sr0
Encoder
MP3
I used to use these settings for MP3 encoding.
Encoder is "lame".
command line: -h -V 1
file extension is .mp3
file format: ~/music/%A/%d/%t-%n.%x
ID3
Uncheck "Add ID3 tags" -- lame is doing the tagging for us.
DiscDB
I use this: freedb.musicbrainz.org
See http://wiki.musicbrainz.org/FreeDBGateway?highlight=%28freedb%29
Misc
Email address
Do not lowercase filenames
Do not change spaces to underscores