Linux for vinyl-to-CD

[Jonathan Hutchins]

I'd love to try Linux for digitizing my vinyl recordings.

Right now, I've stalled out on the project.  I bought the current version of
Roxio's CD Creator (5.x?) so I would get the "Spin Doctor" software Adaptec
bought  and incorporated.  I actually got it to work once, in spite of a
REALLY HORRIBLE UI.  Roxio has tried to emphasize a "theme" design for the
software, making it look like some sort of physical gadget instead of having
separate programs and/or logical menus.  Spin Doctor includes filters for
removing artifacts from tape and vinyl recordings that were highly praised
when the software first came out.  It also has the ability to detect the
gaps between songs on an album and split a single recording of a whole side
into the correct tracks.

Like I said, I got it to work exactly once.  Working on Elton John's "Madman
Across the Water", it split the five tracks on one side into about 37
tracks, failed to record, auto-ended the recording as soon as the first
track started and so on.  Wasted several days on it.

I've looked briefly at using Mandrake to do this project, but while I do
anticipate that I'll need to work with several different programs and layer
them together to get the recording done, I haven't been able to figure out
where to start.

Anybody else doing this on their home PC's?  Is it doable with Linux?  You'd
need something that recorded sound-card-line-in to some audio format, then
another program that would allow you to visually cut-and-splice tracks so
you could record an album side then find the gaps and split it into tracks.
Burning .WAV or .MP3 files to CD with Linux is trivial - all the cdrecord
interfaces seem reasonably functional at least.

If Linux isn't ready for this yet, I'd appreciate advice on software for
that "other operating system".  (Oh, and I already know that Macs work great
at this, and that I can afford a new car easier than the hardware and
software to do it on a Mac.)