Ok. What format are you trying to rip the CD to? MP3, Wav, OGG, or ?? Is it one
certain CD? If so is it full of scratches or the foil on the data is bad?

mp3.
All cds.
My old ones - and brand new ones.
Checked for scratches - cleaned my new one just in case.
Still had the problem.

I've always used K3B for that. Don't know if K3B uses the same files or
libraries as rythymbox or not. Is this a recent problem?

K3B is part of KDE and Rhythmbox is part of GNOME. They are written in
different languages. The codecs would be the same, but not much else. K3B is
the best burning app for Linux, IMO. I do not rip CDs, but there are several
rippers in the repos, Ripoff, Ripper X, Asunder, Morituri, CDParanoia,
RubyRipper and Soundjuicer, plus several more console based apps. There is
also Grip: http://nostatic.org/grip/grip-download.shtml I think that Amarok
and VLC can also rip CDs although it will not be as straight forward as a
dedicated app.

You will need some restricted packages like LAME to rip using any of the
above.

Sound Juicer. What version of Ubuntu? What optical drive? Can you play CDs using
Movie Player or VLC?

Question is whether this is every audio CD you try or is is just one
or two ? If it's every one then that points the finger at the drive
not reading correctly - usually this is no more than dust on the lens
so run a CD drive cleaner disc on it to see if it improves and if not
then perhaps it's time to replace the drive ( lasers go weak over time
and also the dust can get deeper into the lens assembly and that's not
something that's fixable ).

Alternatively if it is just one or two CD's then it may be some sort
of copy protection that's causing the delay. Most of these schemes
don't affect Linux but it may be making it harder for the system to
read the data for copying.

BTW - it's usually possible to just copy / paste audio from a CD on a
Linux system and get the actual audio. Same operation on a Windows box
just copies the CDA track location list :-)

It is every cd that Ive tried.

For example, the day I originally posted I had about 20 I was putting
on my hd so I could put some on my mp3 for a 25 mile hike. Each
one had the same problem.

I thought of the drive too. I have a brand new one for a pc build
that Im doing for a client - so I swapped them out - same thing.
My son has the same computer and components (built at the same
time.) and we dont have any trouble there (though he is on XP)

OK - so the drive doesn't appear to be the issue. Next thing, can you
actually play the discs without them stuttering ? Also have you tried
the direct copy/paste procedure and does that take ages or is it much
faster ?

Presumably the system works well otherwise ?

Since you appear to have a spare drive at least temporarily, try
booting up with a Live CD with the second drive in place then try to
copy audio from a CD in the other drive. This will check for errors in
Ubuntu itself and if just as slow you are looking at a hardware error
somewhere.

Copy/paste takes a long time.
Im playing one of the cd's right now - I havent played it
all the way through on my computer so Im letting it go in
the background to see if it ... skips .. or anything.

Im three songs in and its not skipping but its like stuttering. Im playing
it
now on my laptop (XP) to see if it does the same.

Ive had some trouble with Rhythm Box before. I was listening to a lot of
internet radio and one day it like freaked out playing a stream and its
never been the same since. Bad stream I guess.