www.makemkv.com

I have an idea now: makemkvcon links to libmakemkv.so, which is built from source, correct? Does this also include the code for communicating with the drive? I this case, a fully working port should be doable! makemkvcon would still need to run with FreeBSD's Linux emulation as long as there's no official FreeBSD binary .. but maybe it could at least find the drive without sysfs hackery And maybe a GUI built natively on FreeBSD could actually work with that!

Found out now that it's makemkvcon itself searching for the drive in sysfs, so some trickery will be needed for FreeBSD.

Anyways, I found a way to build MakeMKV on FreeBSD without using a jail or a VM and at least it works without GUI. For everyone who wants to give it a try, I wrote a HOWTO on the FreeBSD forums, with step-by-step instructions.

For anyone who's interested, there's also a Port now, building and installing this console-only version:
https://github.com/Zirias/zfbsd-ports/t ... ia/makemkv

The port is now updated to 1.15.0
It will take a lot of time to build because building a whole GNU toolchain is needed to get a libstdc++.so.6 which is compatible with the new makemkvcon binary (the version in FreeBSD's linux-c7 ports is too old)

The port just hit the official FreeBSD ports: https://www.freshports.org/multimedia/makemkv/

The main restriction is still that GUI won't work, and there are some annoyances on FreeBSD (namely having to build a custom kernel with "sg" devices, and the fact makemkvcon always crashes on exit), so still hoping for a native FreeBSD version. But at least, it *can* be used now, and I guess it's my responsibility now to keep this port up-to-date.

Also, in the current state, FreeBSD can't offer a package, as makemkvcon needs a little patching to work on FreeBSD, and the EULA only allows packagers to distribute unmodified versions ... Mike, what do you think about that?

That's great news. I have recently switched to FreeBSD on the desktop (from Windows). I've tried numerous times over the years but support for desktop software hasn't quite been there. The situation seems to have improved through the efforts of people like yourself. Even some of the commercial software I use is now available through the ports collection, without any need for Linux emulation.

MakeMKV would be the only software I use requiring Linux emulation, a dedicated tool chain and a custom kernel. I assume the existing Windows, OS X and Linux ports all require OS-specific code for handling I/O, so it shouldn't be too difficult to add support for FreeBSD's CAM interface instead of sg. Hopefully this port will attract more users and show there is demand for a native FreeBSD build.