This is the fastest way to create an ipod-playable m4b file. The “drawback” is that the codec is proprietary but this is how you’d put it, it is free and the most efficient in quality and encoding.
Fast Encoding from Wavpack (.ISO.WV, .WV) Audio Format on Linux
[Solved] Fast High Quality Encoding of ape Format into Lame mp3 or Nero m4a on Linux
The lossless2lossy.sh script does not give enough good functions to split *.ape files into tracks. The below solves the problem in Fedora 12.
ffmpeg with aac support in Fedora 12
I have found a pretty helpful article for ffmpeg recompile: //fozzolog.fozzilinymoo.org/tech/2009/11/recompiling-ffmpeg-for-fedora-12-to-add-faac-support.html . However, it looks like the instructions were incomplete.
Get Codec and/or Stream Information of Media Files in Linux
Ripping a Single Audio Stream from a File or DVD
Valid for Fedora 10.
Convert Single APE File to m4a Ipod-Playable Files on Linux
Download the latest Nero Aac MPEG4 Encoder/Decoder binary from here. Unpack, copy neroAacDec, neroAacEnc and neroAacTag to ~/bin. The below is confirmed for Fedora 9, Fedora 10 (x86_64).