<p>
    mp3fs is a very nice idea and a smooth way to use a vast library of lossless archived CDs in the awesome <a href="http://flac.sourceforge.net/">FLAC</a> with <a href="http://www.apple.com/no/ipod/whichipod/">silly mp3players</a> without native support.
  </p>
  
  <p>
    The concept of mp3fs is a FUSE filesystem which converts FLACs to mp3s on the fly (CBR only as of now) via lame. Thus you can have the original FLACs stored, and expose a folder structure of converted mp3s to whatever you want. In my case iTunes.
  </p>
  
  <p>
    This is all pretty easy under Linux, but in OSX there are a few hurdles along the way. First one is that the current OSX <a href="http://www.uwe-arzt.de/node/32">patch</a> for mp3fs is only compatible with the Macports version of MacFUSE (currently 1.7_1). So any currently installed MacFUSE package (via DMG or otherwise) has to be removed.
  </p>
  
  <p>
    Once this is done installing mp3fs and MacFUSE is as easy as installing the mp3fs port. Here is a step-by-step working guide (tested with OSX Leopard 10.5.7).
  </p>
  
  <p>
    1. Install Macports (<a href="http://www.macports.org/install.php">http://www.macports.org/install.php</a>).<br /> 2. Open your favourite terminal.<br /> 3. &#8220;sudo port install mp3fs&#8221;<br /> 4. Make yourself a nice cup of your favourite hot beverage.<br /> 5. Create a mountpoint : &#8220;mkdir mp3fs&#8221;<br /> 6. Mount the mp3fs : &#8220;sudo mp3fs /Path/To/Your/FLAC/Dir,BITRATE /Path/To/Your/Mountpoint -o allow_other,ro&#8221;<br /> Example : &#8220;sudo mp3fs /Users/denis/Music/CDRips,256 /mnt/mp3fs -o allow_other,ro&#8221;<br /> 7. You now have an mp3fs filesystem at /mnt/mp3fs 🙂
  </p>
  
  <p>
    Running &#8220;mp3fs&#8221; with no options will show usage (no manpage yet), and running &#8220;mp3fs /Dir1,256 /Mountpoint -h&#8221; will show you FUSE mountoptions, one of these is -d for debug which could come in handy.
  </p>
  
  <p>
    Thanks to the coders of this nifty little FUSE fs, and to the guys patching it for OSX. Any chance we could have a cleaner patch that would also work with newer MacFUSE versions?
  </p>
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