EAC (or fre:ac in Linux) and for archival purposes the best is to rip to one-file FLAC generating a CUE sheet, saving the ripping logs, and generating a m3u playlist.
There are tools you can later use to split to separate files and/or convert that to any other format you want, but if your goal is to preserve the data in a way that you can later regenerate the CD exactly as is, you need to do as above.
There are players that will be able to play from that file using the information in the CUE file and/or m3u playlist, so you might not even need to split it later. That’s another advantage of using this format.
Another alternative is to create a CD image with a CD burning tool (like a nrg file), you can save those for a rainy day, but the disadvantage is that they take a lot of space and you won’t be able to listen to it. That’s why I prefer the method I described above.
EAC (or fre:ac in Linux) and for archival purposes the best is to rip to one-file FLAC generating a CUE sheet, saving the ripping logs, and generating a m3u playlist.
There are tools you can later use to split to separate files and/or convert that to any other format you want, but if your goal is to preserve the data in a way that you can later regenerate the CD exactly as is, you need to do as above.
There are players that will be able to play from that file using the information in the CUE file and/or m3u playlist, so you might not even need to split it later. That’s another advantage of using this format.
Another alternative is to create a CD image with a CD burning tool (like a nrg file), you can save those for a rainy day, but the disadvantage is that they take a lot of space and you won’t be able to listen to it. That’s why I prefer the method I described above.