this page aims to provide beginners with the necessary basic knowledge of various topics as a prerequisite to ripping content. there is a lot of information here so take your time and read it carefully.
one of the most important things you will have to learn to use is the terminal. a lot of people think the terminal is something archaic, confusing and difficult to use, but it really isn't at all. once you understand the basics of how it works you will realise how much faster, efficient and powerful it can be compared to graphical programs.
on any operating system simply open your program search, type in terminal and hit enter.
on windows you will probably notice multiple search results including terminal, powershell and command prompt. each of these programs have slightly different features but ultimately do the same thing. it's generally best to just use terminal as it's the most modern.
command line (cli) programs generally work by following a format similar to this:
program [option] [input]
program is the name of an exe/binary file on your system. when you run a program from the command line it's just like double clicking an icon on your desktop except there won't be a gui. for programs to be accessible from the command line they must be in your PATH. this is a environment variable that tells your computer where to look for programs.
options are typically prefixed with a single or double hyphen and can be used to tell the program what to do. options may also take parameters to specify exactly how they should work. each program will have it's own unique set of options that can be found by looking through it's manual or by running the program with the -h or --help option.
input is generally a file or url that the program will act on.
now that you know the basic format of cli programs, here is a real world example:
yt-dlp -i --embed-metadata --embed-subs --sub-langs "en.*" https://youtu.be/3TQd2ahq6oU
so what exactly does this do?
yt-dlp # run the program yt-dlp (a cli audio/video downloader)
-i # ignore any errors that occur
--embed-metadata # embed uploader, title, description and chapter info
--embed-subs # embed soft subtitles
--sub-langs "en.*" # only download english subtitles
https://youtu.be/3TQd2ahq6oU # url of the video to download
programs can be installed in many ways:
most of you will be familiar with installers, wizards and app stores but these are not necessarily the best ways to install programs. now that you know how to use the terminal and run cli programs, I highly suggest using a package manager where possible. benefits of using a package manager include:
PATHsome package managers include:
for windows users I recommend chocolatey, but feel free to try the others out. mac users only have one choice and linux users will want to use whichever one comes pre-installed with their specific distro. installation steps can be found on each package manager's website. typically all it takes to install them is a single terminal command.
package managers work just like any other cli program and follow the same template you're already familiar with:
program [option] [input]
each package manager's options will differ slightly so make sure to take a look at the manual or help page for whichever one you're using. it's also important to note that package managers use their own individual repositories, so programs may be named differently, be available in different versions, or not exist at all when using one package manager or another.
below are some example commands for chocolatey, homebrew and pacman:
search repositories for programs named ffmpeg
choco search ffmpeg
brew search ffmpeg
pacman -Ss ffmpeg
install ffmpeg
choco install ffmpeg
brew install ffmpeg
pacman -S ffmpeg
upgrade all programs
choco upgrade all
brew upgrade
pacman -Syu
note: package managers generally require root/administrator privileges
when following the guides on this site you may encounter programs that aren't available in your package managers repositories, or are only available as an outdated version. these programs may not have installers either. if this is the case you will likely have to download a pre-compiled binary from the program's website or github page. to do this, simply head to the downloads or releases page and save the latest pre-compiled binary for your operating system.
when the file has been downloaded you will then have to add it to your PATH to make sure you can access it from anywhere on the command line. to make this straightforward, I recommend saving all your pre-compiled binaries to a single folder such as ~/.local/bin on linux and mac, or C:\bin on windows.
linux and mac users can then add this directory to their PATH by placing the following line in their .bash_profile or .zprofile:
export PATH="$PATH:$(find ~/.local/bin -type d | paste -sd ':' -)"
windows users can do the same by following a guide such as this one.