After struggling for yonks to make ubuntu rip an audio cd I think it is time to give up.
Have tried serpintine, k3b, gnomebake & Brasero.
Various error messages and reports. Have tried ubuntu forum but still
no luck. For info my error reports are all over google search but not the answers...

Going at the problem from another direction could someone suggest a version of linux that will make an audio cd on my system.

Motherboard:
CPU Type Intel Pentium 4 550, 3400 MHz (17 x 200)
Motherboard Name Asus PTGD1-LA (3 PCI, 1 PCI-E x16, 4 DDR DIMM, Audio, LAN, IEEE-1394)
Motherboard Chipset Intel Grantsdale i915P
System Memory 1024 MB
BIOS Type AMI (01/23/06)
Communication Port ECP Printer Port (LPT1)

Display:
Video Adapter RADEON X300/X550 Series Secondary (256 MB)
Video Adapter RADEON X300/X550 Series (256 MB)
3D Accelerator ATI Radeon X300 (RV370)
Monitor Plug and Play Monitor [NoDB] (HS9LA03423)

Multimedia:
Audio Adapter Intel 82801FB ICH6 - High Definition Audio Controller [B-1]

Storage:
IDE Controller Intel(R) 82801FB Ultra ATA Storage Controllers - 2651
IDE Controller Intel(R) 82801FB/FBM Ultra ATA Storage Controllers - 266F
Disk Drive WDC WD1600AAJS-00PSA0 (149 GB, IDE)
Disk Drive Generic USB SD Reader USB Device
Disk Drive Generic USB CF Reader USB Device
Disk Drive Generic USB SM Reader USB Device
Disk Drive Generic USB MS Reader USB Device
Optical Drive PIONEER DVD-RW DVR-112D
Optical Drive SAMSUNG DVD-ROM SD-616E (16x/48x DVD-ROM)
SMART Hard Disks Status OK

Partitions:
C: (NTFS) 53857 MB (24815 MB free)
D: (FAT32) 4804 MB (1155 MB free)
Total Size 57.3 GB (25.4 GB free)

Input:
Keyboard HID Keyboard Device
Mouse HID-compliant mouse
Mouse Logitech USB Cordless Mouse

Network:
Network Adapter Realtek RTL8139/810x Family Fast Ethernet NIC (192.168.0.2)
Modem Agere Systems PCI Soft Modem

Peripherals:
Printer Canon S750
Printer Fax
Printer Net-It Now! SE
USB1 Controller Intel 82801FB ICH6 - USB Universal Host Controller [B-1]
USB1 Controller Intel 82801FB ICH6 - USB Universal Host Controller [B-1]
USB1 Controller Intel 82801FB ICH6 - USB Universal Host Controller [B-1]
USB1 Controller Intel 82801FB ICH6 - USB Universal Host Controller [B-1]
USB2 Controller Intel 82801FB ICH6 - Enhanced USB2 Controller [B-1]
USB Device Logitech USB Cordless Mouse
USB Device USB Composite Device
USB Device USB Human Interface Device
USB Device USB Human Interface Device
USB Device USB Mass Storage Device
USB Device USB Printing Support

If someone spots something to change on my setup I would be happy to do so as everything else with ubuntu works okay ! Otherwise a new linux to try....

All of the programs you listed (k3b, GnomeBaker, Serpentine) aren't audio CD rippers, they're CD burning applications.

If you want to rip an audio CD, use KAudioCreator, Grip or SoundJuicer.

whoops, my mistake, you can see how frustrated I am. I can rip/play back on pc okay but cannot burn audio cd's.............

I wonder if you don't have the proper permissions to use the programs associated with burning, such as cdrecord. What are the "Various error messages" you received? I'm not familiar with GnomeBaker or Serpentine, but K3B has an option under Tools -> K3B Setup... to adjust the permissions.

I don't think Debian has a usergroup set up for cd/dvd devices; any user has access by default.

My only reasoning for this is that I have never had to worry about adding users to a specific group for these sorts of things.

gnomebaker reported this

wodim: No write mode specified.
wodim: Asuming -tao mode.
wodim: Future versions of wodim may have different drive dependent defaults.
scsidev: '0,0,0'
scsibus: 0 target: 0 lun: 0
Linux sg driver version: 3.5.34
Wodim version: 1.1.2
SCSI buffer size: 64512
Beginning DMA speed test. Set CDR_NODMATEST environment variable if device
communication breaks or freezes immediately after that.
TOC Type: 0 = CD-DA
atapi: 1
Device type : Removable CD-ROM
Version : 5
Response Format: 2
Capabilities :
Vendor_info : 'PIONEER '
Identification : 'DVD-RW DVR-112D'
Revision : '1.06'
Device seems to be: Generic mmc2 DVD-R/DVD-RW.
Current: 0x0009 (CD-R)
Profile: 0x002B (DVD+R/DL)
Profile: 0x001B (DVD+R)
Profile: 0x001A (DVD+RW)
Profile: 0x0016 (DVD-R/DL layer jump recording)
Profile: 0x0015 (DVD-R/DL sequential recording)
Profile: 0x0014 (DVD-RW sequential recording)
Profile: 0x0013 (DVD-RW restricted overwrite)
Profile: 0x0011 (DVD-R sequential recording)
Profile: 0x0010 (DVD-ROM)
Profile: 0x000A (CD-RW)
Profile: 0x0009 (CD-R) (current)
Profile: 0x0008 (CD-ROM)
Using generic SCSI-3/mmc CD-R/CD-RW driver (mmc_cdr).
Driver flags : MMC-3 SWABAUDIO BURNFREE
Supported modes: TAO PACKET SAO SAO/R96P SAO/R96R RAW/R16 RAW/R96P RAW/R96R
Drive buf size : 1267712 = 1238 KB
FIFO size : 12582912 = 12288 KB
4Speed set to 705 KB/s
9 Blocks remaining: 181789
Starting to write CD/DVD at speed 4.0 in real TAO mode for single session.
Last chance to quit, starting real write in 5 seconds. 4 seconds. 3 seconds. 2 seconds. 1 seconds. 0 seconds. Operation starts.
Waiting for reader process to fill input buffer ... input buffer ready.
Performing OPC...
Starting new track at sector: 0
Errno: 5 (Input/output error), write_g1 scsi sendcmd: no error
CDB: 2A 00 00 00 09 99 00 00 1B 00
status: 0x2 (CHECK CONDITION)
Sense Bytes: 70 00 05 00 00 09 99 0E 00 00 00 00 64 00 00 00
Sense Key: 0x5 Illegal Request, Segment 0
Sense Code: 0x64 Qual 0x00 (illegal mode for this track) Fru 0x0
Sense flags: Blk 2457 (not valid)
__________________

k3b gave error message 254 and use TAO mode

Thanks for any advice

for k3b the best is to create a new group "burning" where usually root and perhaps now you are in as users....

But I am wondering since with my opensuse k3b was asking to create this group at the very first starting of the program and with that is nearly working out of the box...