Dear Gan,

The analog hardware built into the CD-ROM drive does not use
the audio device in any way to play through its phone jack.
Recording from a standard audio CD into Audacity should work
fine.  I'm not sure, but, I think you can set up the audio
mixer device to route audio directly from the CD-ROM's stereo
analog output at its rear connector (if connected to the
sound hardware) to the sound card analog input so you don't
have to have a cable from the drive to the rear of the 
computer.

--Video Mike--