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Syncing Music Players In Linux?
Daengbo writes "I recently sold my old laptop to a friend, and she asked me to keep Ubuntu on it rather than installing Windows for her. To help her with the transition, I wrote two intro lessons for her, but we've hit a stumbling block. The iRivier Clix (4GB) she's been using syncs with Windows Media Player. My research shows that the model has both an MTP for the sync and a UMS mode which acts as a mass storage device. Rhythmbox's 'Scan Removable Media' doesn't pick up anything from the USB mass storage device, and although Syncropated claims to support these types of devices, it doesn't find any supported devices. Unless you use an iPod, this appears to be a real weak point in the Linux desktop. Do you sync your mass storage devices and music players? What do you use?"
Amarok
Summation 2
So the obvious thing is you can tell her she's going have to do 'man mount' to find out how to get her music synced. No -- really!
That joke never gets old...
Seriously though -- in UMS mode you should be able to mount it as a drive. You'll abviously have to make a script for her, but that's easy enough.
I love that I know how hot this girl is based on the detail in your help pages for her....
Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm
My experience with iRivers is a bit old (it's before there was a libmtp), but here goes.
a tibility) but note I've never used that model. The sparse Syncropated page doesn't say if it actually *uses* libmtp, and in fact, I can't see any mention of MTP on their website; it only mentions mass storage.
a ture.php). The mother company is Korean, so the website and docs can be a bit funny with the English at times, but otherwise it's a great product. Rockbox (http://www.rockbox.org/) is a safe firmware replacement, and it also, well, rocks. In either firmware, the device is a simple mass storage device (with no funny business other than an obnoxious adapter necessary for USB), and KDE ([insert dig on Gnome]) picks it up immediately.
libmtp should work, in the normal "well, it's supposed to work" sense, (as listed at http://libmtp.sourceforge.net/index.php?page=comp
My iRiver required some incantation when turning on the device to put it into mass storage mode, I would assume this is still the case. I think you had to hold stop while turning it on, but it's been so long and it was so immediately frustrating that I've purged that experience from my brain. It could have been anything.
Since this is an Ask article... I use an iAudio X5 (http://www.cowonglobal.com/product/product_X5_fe
For actually syncing, I'm a junkie for simplicity: I use rsync and a directory full of symlinks to the music I want.
Write your own Driver you n00b!
Seriously though.
I use AmaroK. It works with my 4g iPod and my Blackberry Pearl. It will sync any generic mass storage device also. I'd give it a try.
From that project: Personally, (most) MP3 players I've hooked up to Linux through a USB have been recognized as just plain old drives. You put the MP3 in the right folder (sometimes takes testing) and there it is, ready to play.
My work here is dung.
Use rsync.
The problem seems to be that the music player in question isn't really implementing UMS mode as Linux implements it, and is thus not recognized.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
Syncroprated! is listed as 'pre-Alpha' on garage.maemo.org. So I would imagine that it might have problems. But, it is written Python, so it should be fairly easy to debug the problem if you're a developer. If not, well, you'll have to wait for the app to become a bit more mature. Since I'm a Python developer, I think I'll download it and have a look at the code. It looks like a neat program to spend some time with.
BTW--Personally, I just use Nautilus to sync up my Creative Labs Zen Nano player.
My blog
My iRiver H320 is seen by Linux distros as a MSC, but if I recall correctly, later models like your Clix dropped that functionality when iRiver got in bed with Microsoft and their DRM. You'll probably find more info on http://www.misticriver.net/ .
"I might have made a tactical error in not going to a physician for 20 years." -- Warren Zevon
Some people in the Sandisk Sansa E200 Linux forum have run MTP Mode on Linux...
Z.
-- Under/Overrated is meta-moderation, and therefore is Redundant.
A quick Google search got me this: Using the irivier Clix on Linux
I use SuperSync to sync all my music libraries over the net and locally.. it was written in java and eclipse SWT, so a linux version may be possible.
http://supersync.com/
Might work.. might not..
Sounds like your device may not be connecting correctly. My iAudio X5 shows up the same as a USB flash drive does, and KDE asks me whether I want to mount it automatically. From there, I can use a GUI like konqueror (or, as others will mention, Amarok). Typically, though, I just use the command line.
For a while I synced podcasts with rsync in a small script which I linked from a KDE menu:
SOURCE=/path/to/podcasts/
DEST=/path/to/player/podcasts/
rsync -av $SOURCE $TARGET
The same could easily be done for a directory of music small enough to fit on the player. If space is a concern, you could also (very carefully) use the --delete option, but I don't know if I've tested that.
"The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent." --Carl Sagan
I use a Sansa m240 (or 230 - I forget). Anyway, it has the really nice quality that you can just dump a bunch of MP3 files onto it, and it will look at the id3 tags (artist, album, etc.) to automatically organize the songs. This is nice because any Linux software can just treat it as a plain old USB Mass Storage device, but I still get nicely categorized MP3s when I use the Sansa.
So the Sansa works pretty well, but there's one annoying problem. I use Amarok to get podcasts and to transfer them to the Sansa. Amarok tries to put the items on to the Sansa using a directory tree with levels based on artist, album, etc. The problem is that for some reason Amarok's transfer to the Sansa fails unless the corresponding directory already exists on the Sansa. So when I subscribe to a new podcast, my first transfer always fails. I have to look at the name of the directory path Amarok was planning to use on the Sansa, create it myself on the Sansa's file system, and then restart the transfer. My guess is that this is Amarok's fault, not the Sansa's.
From the bottom of the first tutorial...
Cassandra said...
this is awesome Dan thanks!! you OBVIOUSLY have way too much time on your hands...lol but i'm glad to benefit from it!
In other words, DENIED! Sorry, man, we've all been there.
The iPod support isn't that great either. I love how when I eject the iPod it immediately automatically reconnects. LOL. I have to go to a command line and manually unmount it to get it to stick.
Of course Amarok. It supports many portable devices. Including UMS and MTP
MOD THE CHILD UP!
I use my Palm Tungsten T and a non-free player called pTunes and a 1GB SD Card to store my music. I love it because I use my PDA heavily still *and* it plays my music. I'd hate to have a separate music player that only did that one thing.
.ogg files on the SD card, getting them on and off is easy with GNU/Linux.
And since the music is stored as regular ol'
I use Gnomad2 with my Creative JukeBox Zen Xtra 30Gb. Works a charm. (Even better than the software Creative ships with it which integrates with your explorer).
Also, have you looked at whether there are any SDK's available for the problematic device?
http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_iRiver
Enjoy,
It's just the normal noises in here.
I buy players wisely first. I make a point of researching beforehand and only buy players that:
1) Appear as a generic storage device when plugged into USB and doesn't require drivers or other software to be installed on your PC.
( this gets around any Windows-only and most DRM limitations, and also means I can use it as portable storage for other files).
2) Supports ogg ( and FLAC if possible )
3) Doesn't contain DRM
What perfect timing.. This quite corresponds to the other article the other day about getting the oldskool players put in the graveyard by the ipod... I think someone even predicted this.. :)
Kismet strikes again...
Even if you get to synchronize her tunes, she won't let you synchronize with her.
Seeing it appears you are using Ubuntu, I'll give you instructions for that.
Open a bug in Launchpad (http://launchpad.net). Place the name of the device and output from lsusb and lshw when the device is plugged in.
Most likely the device did not declare itself as a DAP (Digital Audio Player) in HAL. It's a simple configuration file change if you want to make it yourself as well.
I had to get a similar change in for my Samsung DAP.
I've been using a Sandisk Sansa e260 for a number of months now, and it's working very well with Linux. It's in mass-storage mode, so it gets picked up by the usb-storage module. I then use KDE's Amarok music player to sync over new MP3s. The thing also has Rockbox support underway, though I think it's not yet complete...
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
My Sansa shows up just like any other USB Flashdrive in Ubuntu (Provided it's in MSC mode)...
There may be a setting to switch from MTP to MSC as there is on the Sansa, this would account for failure of Ubuntu to see it... it works beautifully with linux (at least for music, videos and photos are a pain to convert I hear)
Oh boo hoo, the world will end because you can't sync your mp3 player...or at least your particular model. If this is a real weak point in the Linux Desktop, then we've come a long way. Instead of whining to the community, write an app or complain to the makers of iRiver that they are not supporting their customer base by refusing to write a quick and dirty, yet shiny and neat-o, application to sync your player under Linux. Beeya!
I hook it up to the computer and let it auto mount. If I need to do a full resync I delete the info on the usb drive, and drag my music onto drive. Usually I just drag the music to it and let it only add what is new. I manage my 30GB IAudio this way.
5G iPod support stinks for me in Linux as well. I love my ability to rip any MP3s from an iPod with KDE by typing "ipod:/" and having everything sorted nicely. On the other hand, synching is terribly broken. Last night I tried using both the ipod:/ kioslave AND Amarok (which probably uses the ipod kioslave) with mostly poor results. 16GB of music was copied to my device, but only 350 of my 2500 songs "registered" on the iPod. The rest were in the appropriate folders, but the iPod stated 15GB of its data were "Other" files and could not play them.
I have finally reached the point where I regret buying my iPod Video. I loved my old 30GB Photo but iTunes has become more bloated and buggy instead of getting better like I always thought it would. They've obscured the internal iPod library beyond usability, I really wish my player appeared as a "USB Mass Storage" device and simply played the files I dropped to it.
I went to eat some animal crackers and the box said, "Do not eat if seal is broken." I opened the box and sure enough..
I find that a manual sync via RCA out from my 8-Track player into my soundcard and recording via Jack Audio/Ardour most effective for my every day needs. You never know when you'll get a box full of these old tapes. However, once I'm finished this batch of tapes, I'm gonna miss that clickety click sound between tracks.
I don't use KDE, but I use Amarok. Honestly, it is the only media player on Linux worth anything. Banshee and others look fine at first, but you will realize they are unstable pieces of junk if you try to add more than 50 songs to the library. Also, if you use an iPod, you can get it to work with Amarok or other Linux apps quite easily. However, the experience will never be as smooth as iTunes. This is a serious problem. This is why even though I run Linux on all my machines, I still use an iPod with a Mac mini for podcast listening. There simply isn't any other solution that works as smoothly.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
It seems to me that this is a weakness in your hardware device (not properly supporting the mass-storage device standards) more so than that of Linux. Not that that functionally helps -you- all that much, but blame where blame is due.
use libnjb or some use libmtp. Just stating it for the record. You can then use Gnomad2 or Amarok to manage songs, or use it as a usb drive.
PCI fm transmitter. $5 stereo at a yardsale. Central music for your whole house. Google "PCI-MAX 2005".
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
My wife gifted me with a 4 GB Sansa m200 this Christmas. It has both modes (MTP and whatever the other one is called), video, radio, recording, etc. Up to 8 GB storage. I have no interest in video (bad eyes), radio or anything other than it's music capabilities. And whether or not it worked with Linux.
As expected, it's mounted as a storage drive when plugged into the USB port. I'm not so anal that I have to sync stuff (I have too much music and am rarely home these days), so I just drag and drop whatever I want to hear onto the player. My only gripe with it up to this point was no open formats (ogg, flac).
However, Rockbox has made firmware available for this model and it's incredible. (Warning: this will not work with the m200R Rhapsody models). Not only does the unit sound better, it now supports all open formats and adds a ton of configuration features not available with the stock firmware.
The other great thing is that you can dual boot between Rockbox and Sansa firmware, and update the Rockbox firmware but just plugging in to a computer and copying the open downloaded firmware archive to the device. Deleting and going back to Sansa control is very easy as well.
Great devices, those Sansas.
Joe Dougherty, Florida, USA
The words I thought I brought, I left behind. So, never mind.
I had a similar problem with a Cowon D2 and rhythmbox. I'd plug it in, it would mount, but rhythmbox never saw it. I found this: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=312196 basically just create an empty file .is_audio_player on the root of the device and rhythmbox will recognize it when you plug it in. I believe this only works in mass storage mode.
iRiver ifp799 works fine when formatted to ums mode in ubuntu.
http://banshee-project.org/Main_Page I use banshee with my ipod works great!
I've used GNomad2 for my creative Nomad Zen for years. Recently I switched to a Creative Vision W (a MTP device ) and noticed that GNomad2 has been expanded to include all devices via libMTP. It might be working a look for you.
According to the Wikipedia article on iRiver Clix, there are two versions of the firmware available: One supports MTP (Windows only) and the other supports UMS (generic mass storage and OS agnostic). If your friend's Clix has the former installed, just download the firmware for which UMS is supported and flash the device. (You may need to find a Windows box for that step. Annoyingly, some hardware manufacturers require the use of Windows software for loading their firmware.) After that, Ubuntu should automatically mount the player immediately when the device is connected and using it with Ubuntu should be quite easy.
I have a Sansa e130... it has only 521MB, and shows as USB storage, so I don't really had much trouble copying my music to it using nothing but the file manager...
But, I do miss some features that both iTunes and WMP have... Such as the option to downsample the music as it syncs with the device, and the iTunes' "AutoFill" feature that just fills the iPod with a random selection from your highest rated songs.
Also, I'd like to be able to create playlists with a size limit... so I know it will always fit inside my player.
---- You know how some doctors have the Messiah complex - they need to save the world? You've got the "Rubik's" complex
Is this a doable?
I use an iRiver T30 with the standard MTP firmware, and Amarok works quite well with it.
In fact, it works a bit better with Amarok than with WMP11, since WMP11 will occasionally decide that it is a new device and demand that I set up syncing again. And of course Amarok has additional benefits, such as podcatching and better library management. As far as I'm concerned, the only drawback is that you can't do an Audible.com device activation with Amarok.
If you've got automount running, UMS devices should just magically appear as storage when plugged in. Works fine in Suse 10.1, anyway. For MTP devices, libmtp works fine. I just got a Samsung YP-T9 and replaced the MTP firmware with UMS firmware by transferring it with mtp-sendfile from libmtp. (There's also mtpfs which is supposed to make an MTP device look like a file system. I haven't tried it, it uses FUSE (user-space filesystem) which I haven't got installed at the moment and libmtp did the job.)
On the YP-T9 after transferring, I can play the files directly from the file viewer menu, but I need to run the "update library" to get them to show up under the music menu. (The player also plays Ogg Vorbis files just fine, but the current firmware doesn't seem to recognize Ogg metadata the way it does MP3 metadata. Sigh.) The same seems to be true if I transfer files from Windows in UMS mode.
-- Alastair
And my iRiver T10 just works. I plug it in, it shows on desktop and rhytmbox is able to see it without problem. So the problem is NOT with linux, but just with some players.
Extreme Programming - Redundant Array of Inexpensive Developers
I use rsync to sync my iRiver H120 to my computer's music collection.
How about this: if iRiver doesn't work in Linux, complain to iRiver.
With Linux, you could also fix the problem yourself. You could also pay someone to fix the problem. If the iRiver is popular enough, you could also wait and someone else will fix it for you.
With Windows, you don't have those options, so I consider that a weak point in the Windows desktop.
My GF was trying to get use her X5 under Ubuntu unsuccessfully. I took out a short USB extension cable which she used to access a spare USB port on the back of the machine - suddenly it worked fine.
Make sure you are using only the cable that came with the device.
If you've got automount running, UMS devices should just magically appear as storage when plugged in. Works fine in Suse 10.1, anyway. For MTP devices, libmtp [sourceforge.net] works fine. I just got a Samsung YP-T9 and replaced the MTP firmware with UMS firmware by transferring it with mtp-sendfile from libmtp. (There's also mtpfs [adebenham.com] which is supposed to make an MTP device look like a file system. I haven't tried it, it uses FUSE (user-space filesystem) which I haven't got installed at the moment and libmtp did the job.)
On the YP-T9 after transferring, I can play the files directly from the file viewer menu, but I need to run the "update library" to get them to show up under the music menu. (The player also plays Ogg Vorbis files just fine, but the current firmware doesn't seem to recognize Ogg metadata the way it does MP3 metadata. Sigh.) The same seems to be true if I transfer files from Windows in UMS mode.
That's why Linux on the desktop isn't going anywhere. The end user, not the developer, gets stuck with integration. Any questions?
OK, I am using a Creative Zen with Ubuntu and it mounts like an USB stick just fine.
However, I'd not call this syncing. Usually, I have a growing collection of music or podcasts on my harddisk and I want to e.g. copy the new ones to the mp3 player and remove the ones I have already listened to on my player or even in my collection.
Tracking what I have already listened to and using this information for archiving, deleting, copying etc. of tracks seems like the obvious and natural thing to do, but I havent figured out any way how to do this under Ubuntu.
So -- is this because I missed something or because it cannot be done?
my little creative has never given me a problem with linux (debian etch)
So... You may have bought an iRiver!
They can play MP3, and with the manufacturers firmware updates, many can play ogg or flag (I forget which, or if both are possible).
34486853790
Connection too slow for X forwarding? Try "ssh -CX user@host"
HTH
Deleted
Oh, you are so painfully right.
:( I got in touch with the developers to ask if perhaps they could make the dependency optional, but they didn't seem to want to. But perhaps if more of us contacted them and asked nicely they'd change their mind?
Apparently it all began when some Amarok developers started trying to leverage Amarok's success to popularize the Ruby language, of which they are vocal advocates, by making it a mandatory dependency of Amarok.
Nowadays when you install Amarok it also installs parts of Ruby on Rails!! (Check it for yourself, I am not making this up.) This is non-optional.
These days I no longer use Amarok, it had become too slow.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I use a SonyEricsson K750 phone as my music player - it's a Flash walkman, with 1GB MemoryStick, Bluetooth and USB connection to my Ubuntu (GNOME) PC.
How do I sync not just the K750's music/image/video folders (which appear as USB drives), but also its calendar, contacts and email with desktop Evolution?
--
make install -not war
Check it out. http://www.banshee-project.org/
Yet again someone has realized that if everyone used linux, then no one would want to switch to windows.
Tharkban (It is a signature after all)
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
How about this: if iRiver doesn't work in Linux, complain to iRiver. The difference is that none of these manufacturers of music players are seeking to support Linux as they do other OSes - we as a community have taken on that yoke ourselves for now - and so, as a result, if a particular player doesn't play well with Linux, it is a failure of those who have been trying to improve support for the players on Linux. It's fine to say that companies should provide Linux support for their hardware - but generally that just doesn't happen. If you want to use Linux you need to accept that and deal with it.
If you don't care who you "blame" - if you only care about the practical results you can achieve, then this situation is not necessarily a failure of any particular set of developers (since we're not laying blame) but nevertheless, the set of software that makes up the "Linux Desktop" can't do what you want, so it has failed. With Windows, you don't have those options... How so?
---GEC
I'm but the humble pupil, seeking to snatch the scratchbuilt pebble from the master's fully articulated hand
I can't believe no one's mentioned USBsink.
http://usbsink.sourceforge.net/
A program for automatic file synchronization over USB.
USBSink is a GNOME program for automatic file synchronization over USB. It is designed for users of removable drives, such as flash drives or external hard disks. In USBSink you define a task associated to a particular USB drive, and then have a complete automation of data trasfers. With file monitoring and hardware detection features, the program is able to respond and act according to relevant events on the desktop.
I have a MP3 device, that acts as either MTP or USB Mass Storage device. Either option works fine, as it comes up under Debian Testing just fine. Banshee nor Rhythmbox detect it(though I've never tried.). When plugged in the folder pops up in Nautilus and I simply drag all the songs I want to the USB Mass Storage device.
I have a U10 (512K), I think it's the predecessor of yours. Originally we were screwed and there was only an MTP version in the U.S. they've since (due to many complaints) added a USB version of the firmware. Once installed you still have to go through the pain of running a program called easypmp after you copy files to it in order to get the indexing to work correctly. I have no idea if your model has a USB version of the firmware.
I bought mine originally because it was one of the few players that can play ogg (plus it looks really cool) but I'm still a bit disapointed that another important feature for me is still missing: proper gapless playback. It is hard to listen to classical music (or Pink Floyd) with gaps in between the tracks).
"Unless you use an iPod, this appears to be a real weak point in the Linux desktop."
So the only things that exist out there are the iPod and the iriver?
My daughters sandisk 6 gig mp3/mp4/photo player works perfectly with linux. Same as the archos unit my wife has as well as every other mp3 player that is not designed to screw with the customer by using a non standard transfer setup.
iriver is neat, but their engineers need to have the crap beat out of them for not using a standard USB memory design and ignore any stupid management software.
Solution, tell your girlfriend to get a decent mp3 player.
Banshee has an interface very similar to Rhythmbox, but Guide/DAPs/MTP">uses libmtp to support many more digital audio players. I find the Amarok interface a bit cluttered, and it's a KDE app anyway. Something like Gnomad2 would not be as well-integrated with your music library as Banshee. Give it a try.
Several of the devices in the Clix line, including the U10 (which I have), can be upgraded to use alternate firmware - to use it as a mass storage device. (But to rebuild the playlists, you'll need EasyPMP.)
Barring that, I have to confess I did run into trouble syncing using MTP through amaroK. It worked, but it was horribly unreliable. The whole setup reeks.
grey wolf
LET FORTRAN DIE!
As it supports UMS just copy the music manually or is that too difficult? Personally I can't stand syncing rubbish.
I have Ubuntu installed on a few machines around here, and have tried various software packages with various music players, and I can honestly say that while I love linux, stuff like this doesn't work as well as it could if the hardware companies started supporting their devices in Linux.
Although Linux is getting there in terms of usability as a corporate or power-user's desktop, it's still a little out of reach of the common man.
I'm sure in a couple more years, it'll be there.
Message contains 1 attachment: spam.gif
This seems to be pretty much personal peference.
I think most mac apps look like chit. Can't stand quicktime or iTunes.
Wheras I fell in love with Amarok the first time I ran it. The only reason my wife ever goes back to windows is to play games. Amarok has her hooked on Linux.
vi +
Been using http://www.gtkpod.org/ for a few years now with my 4G iPod, now with Fedora Core 6. Works flawlessly, but the dekstop program has weird sorting. You could also use udev rules to back up anything: http://www.linuxjournal.com/node/9311/
www.itjerk.com
They've got a lot of the basic stuff but the less super popular a gadget like that is the less likely it will be easily supported in Linux.
.. WHY. Your just going to wind up walking this person through things they used to do by themselves with windows and it's not going to end. If that's your goal then a Linux laptop will be great, but otherwise you are letting her downgrade her and her laptops full potential.
Ubuntu's PDF reader doesn't even work right out of the box, how much can you expect from the the OS that's packaged with broken software.
Point is if she doesn't know much about Linux and likes things like mp3 players then you two are kidding yourself by thinking Linux will provide her with a good computing experience. If you like to be LOCKED into your hardware purchases then LINUX IS FOR YOU. Otherwise it's still not there as a reasonable desktop offering. As a limited desktop it's pretty good, but even when hardware is supported it still usually lacking in the options it had in windows. That's always going to happen in Linux because they are so scared of proprietary drivers which leaves the open source community with the retarded goal of re-writting a half ass version of the driver and/or software to go with your hardware.
No matter how you spin it you almost always wind up with less control and functionality out of your non standard hardware in Linux. Game pads, video cards, sound cards, dvd burning, printing.. and the list goes on for the headaches of running Linux.
I've seen a lot of people at first love linux but when they actually have to live with it on their own for a couple months it becomes very limiting.
In many cases the people learn to adapt to having less functionality simply because they can't install a new OS on it themselves, but you are giving the average user a downgrade by putting them in Linux and you can't reasonable expect them to be able to do a lot of things they can do easily on XP or Vista. The lack of desktop functionality is an obvious fact that Linux zealots may pathetically deny, but when you give a common user a Linux desktop it becomes painfully apparent as they have to ask you how to do anything beyond surfing or plugging in a thumb drive or burning simplistic DVDs. Like I said they will get used to it probably, but your guys are kidding yourself thinking ubuntu is even remotely as easy to use as XP or Vista. It's not really faster either, so
I mean, maybe I'm wrong, maybe she wants to run her laptop as a server in which case linux will be a great choice. Nothing like
You'd be surprised. You'd be surprised. The phrase "Orange Soda" just never will sound the same after that one fateful night...
You misspelled "I talked her into."
gtkpod for my brother's iPod, and I haven't used it myself, but am aware that Amarok has syncing capabilities.
If history repeats itself, why can't we study the future?
[Amarok] resource requirements are brutal. It eats memory, is painfully slow to startup and regularly spikes the processor at 100% even when it's doing nothing.
It's a little slow on a 400 MHz K6/2, but that's only because the IDE on that ancient machine blows. Amarok is snappy on any 1GHz class CPU or better.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
iRiver devices come with PlayForSure DRM. You need to update the firmware on the device to get rid of it. Use the UMS version of the firmware. You won't be able to buy music with the device on WMP but you will be able to mount it as a SCSI drive in linux
Most cheap players have M$'s crappy and now abandoned DRM but it's harmless and updating it won't remove it. I have heard that the update will remove your ability to play OGG. Because of this, most iRiver players will do either ogg or USBFS but not both and I won't own one. If you have one of the first iRivers, you should use RockBox, which is much better than any iRiver firmware.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I read a rumor at the link I gave above that MS has done much to make Ogg Vorbis unavailable in the US.
It's not a rumor, it's a court admitted fact. See The Register story. Microsoft "deals" are always like that.
MTP is another wonderful thing they pushed. It's slower and less reliable than USBFS which better players use.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I actually have problems with the card not working all the time due to IRQ conflict, but I live within the D.C. beltway in a populated area off of a main road and have never had any interference whatsoever.
What I have had, strangely enough, is CB-radio interference ON MY STEREO SPEAKERS. Mind you, the stereo is set to an OPTICAL DIGITAL connection to my computer. No FM antenna is attached to the receiver, which receives 0 radio stations when I try to tune into the the local stations. No antenna exists in my house. Yet, every now and then, I hear truckers coming out of my speakers. It's weird as fuck.
But not quite as weird as the time I picked up radio cuba by hooking my guitar to the microphone jack of my old stereo, and cranking the stereo volume up while keeping the guitar pickups turned off. THAT one REALLY confused me.
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
The way I see it is: ;o)
:)
a) He gets the lady, becomes one more happy Linux user
b) He doesn't but she likes Ubuntu, becomes one more happy Linux user
Either way, the community has one more happy member.
We all win
PS
You can't blame a guy for trying can you?
will work for Karma
- Pure plug and play, automatically popping up in rhythmbox.
- Plays ogg files. (And because ogg has a better compression than mp3 at the same bit rate,
you either get better quality or more music on your 4GB.)
- Long battery life.
But using Linux and preferring open formats for my music, I do need to look a bit closer at the players than a windows user has to. The upside to this is that I won't end up depending on some weird proprietary software to be able to use the device.On a 3.4MHz P4 it's acceptable, but I still see the memory thing.
Web2.0: I love when people Flickr my cuil and digg my boingboing until my google is reddit and I start to yahoo
I just got my girlfriend a 12GB iriver X20 for her birthday. There's a menu setting which allows you to select the connection behaviour - whether it acts like a USB drive, or be compatible with WMP. Then, just drag & drop the mp3s/oggs. It even has a microSD slot, which I haven't played with yet.
I have a 20GB iriver H10, which requires me to hold a button in while switching it on to put it into "Emergency Mode" so it appears as a USB drive. Prior to installing Rockbox, I then had to run easyH10 to build the database. Now, I just drag and drop - Rockbox builds the DB for me.
Back in the day, I had an iriver iFP-120. iriver provided a firmware on their website which, when installed, caused the player to act like a USB drive.
So, the H10 is the least Linux-friendly, and even that's not so bad! They're functional, durable, cheap & attractive little players.
Personally, (most) MP3 players I've hooked up to Linux through a USB have been recognized as just plain old drives. You put the MP3 in the right folder (sometimes takes testing) and there it is, ready to play.
Many MTP devices (newer version of plays for sure) has 2 modes of operation. 1 is the music mode requiring MTP for transfers. Having the MTP library and a proper player to handle sync is essential. I went through that for a newer version of the Zen V video player. The other mode is mass USB storage mode. The device usualy has to be partitioned to set aside some space for mass storage. The player won't tough anything stuffed in that partition with a 10 foot pole. It is storage space and nothing else. It is one of the evils of MTP devices to prevent casusal copying of the music library. Fortunately on Linux, the Banchee and other players which sync to MTP devices through the MTP library, are perfectly able to copy both ways unlike the software that ships with the player which will happly delete removed songs on the next sync.
Me personaly, I prefer a driverless MP3 player. The cheaper the better. My under $40 Coby player includes mic and FM recording to MP3 file, SD slot for expansion, backlit LCD display, driverless USB connection for drag and drop file maitenance, and runs on a rechargable AAA battery. It's easy to use at home, or on work PC's where we are not allowed to install software. I often will find an MP3 podcast which I directly DL to the player at work. Most DRM players will not function that way. It is important to find a player which meets your needs.
The only thing I haven't figured out how to do without it's driver software is build playlists. Someday I'll find a Windows PC to load the software on to build a playlist to use as an editable template.
Without a playlist the player still functions well just navigating the directories instead.
The truth shall set you free!
Plug in device, window opens that asks if I want to open the device, open the device. Konqueror opens and I drag and drop files.
I'm sorry, I'm to tired to be witty at the moment so this message will have to do.
I had a similar problem with the Creative Zen V (4GB). I grabbed the libmtp stuff from http://libmtp.sourceforge.net/ and can copy files over via the command line. mtp-sendtr works to send a track over to the player. I haven't had much luck getting Amarok to work with libmtp though. I recompiled it with what I thought were the proper options but no luck. My wife has an iPod and either Amarok or Rhythmbox works great for it. A little trouble with playlists in Rhythmbox, but otherwise it's fine. D.
The Archos 404, 504 & 604 series of music & video players use a Linux O/S. I find under Ubuntu and Amarok, my Archos syncs just perfectly. Worth a look
Amarok positively blows on my 1.0GHz PIII (Ubuntu).
and you think "Microsoft Office is lighting fast on just about any hardware, and that has been true for every release cycle the site has had so far after Office 95." That's rich.
You must be bored with your Slashdot troll job and want to be fired to write such transparently false nonsense.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
rsync the thing. Problem solved.
I use Amarok + libmtp with my MP3 player and it works great for syncing.
I do wish I could claim I never had to use M$ Office. I was happy enough without it, then I took a job with a Fortune 100 company, where Office was considered a "standard". Opening more than one or two M$ documents would bring their desktops to a disk thrashing crawl. People would literally drum their fingers on their desks waiting for the shit to work. They considered floppies more reliable than their desktops or the servers. They made us boot daily, so every morning I'd go get coffee while the poor thing booted. That kind of performance was the best money could buy.
Windoze and Office are pigs. They always were and they always will be.
Years later, I own one of those very machines and my wife uses it daily. It's an 800 MHz PIII and guess what, Mepis out of the box runs it very well. It does Amarok just fine too.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
create an empty file in the player's root directory named .is_audio_player and enjoy with programs like Rhythmbox. This was the piece I couldn't find for a long time when trying to get my Sansa e260 to work nicely. Oh yeah, also make sure it's in UMS mode.
source
This works on my UMS audio player(Zen Nano) that I use with Rhythmbox
/media/usbdisk .is_audio_player
cd
touch
That flags your UMS device as an audio player. It should then show up in Rhythmbox
I'm not sure how the Clix works, but my iRiver T30 had a firmware that only supported MTP, not UMS; I had to download another firmware that does UMS (which ment losing MTP support, but since I'm a linux user, and I only listen to stuff I rip myself and steer clear of DRM, that's hardly an issue for me). Then I used iRiver's firmware updater to install the new firmware; you need a Windows machine for this to work.
According to a post on this page, the older firmwares only did MTP; if you want UMS as well, you need a newer firmware.
Does the player mount as a thumbdrive when you plug it in? If not, your player only does MTP, not UMS.
As to what software to use to synch the player; heck, I just use a file browser, or "cp" on the commandline.
Install windows on my workstation? You crazy? Got any idea how much I paid for the damn thing?
i use amarok to hook up my sansa e250R i dont kno what mode it is in it says rhapsody.. the other is plays for sure.. idk.. but ya amarok works good
The point of the discussion was looking for a nice, graphical way for her to do it and, hopefully, see what's going on while it does. She has no concept what MTP or UMS are. I COULD write a script for her, which is what I'll do if I need to (I'd originally just planned to put an entry in the menu, but the udev rule looks like an elegant way to do it). Manually scripting the thing won't be nearly as reassuring for her as telling her to install X (probably Amarok at this point).
Put identity in the browser.
Link to the latest CLIX UMS firmware._ ENG_UM_OK.ZIP
http://www.iriverplus.com/tools/UMS/U/U20CLIX/U20
Some iRiver players have one firmware for MTP, one for UMS
This page maintains a list of updates for iRiver players.
http://nyaochi.sakura.ne.jp/iriverupdate/
I live in Australia, OGGs play fine on my UMS-based E10. I have had problems running some AVI's (although most work ok).
I bought my E10 mainly because it was about the most Linux-friendly device I could find that had the features I wanted at a reasonable price and reputation for quality. PMPlib allows you to rebuild the device's media index, iriverter (a gui front-end for Mencoder) produces the appropriate video format for the device. Being UMS-based, it doubles as a USB drive for copying files around. I even store scripts on it that I run to rsync files to it, call PMPlib/Mencoder, etc. I'm very happy with my little E10.
Rockbox doesn't support the E10, so that's not an option for me (yet).
Disclaimer: I have no links whatsoever with iRiver, other than being a satisfied customer.
I use the program gnomad2 to transfer tracks to my Creative Zen which also uses MTP.
You need the libmtp library from here: http://libmtp.sourceforge.net/
And gnomad2 from here: http://gnomad2.sourceforge.net/
Gnomad2 isnt the greatest app ever written but it seems to do the job and is relatively easy to use.
I believe there is also a kio slave for mtp out there somewhere which might be easier, but I haven't used it myself.
The TuxMobil Linux Compatibility Survey for Media Players lists more than 100 compatibility reports for many audio and video players. There is also a survey of useful Linux software to organize, convert and sync your MP3, Ogg and MPEG files.
I bought an iRiver recently. It was defective by design out of the box, but the firmware flasher fixed it and vorbis was still available.
If it's a USB mass storage device, you could use the unison file synchronizer. It has a simple graphical interface.
... and end up somewhere you don't want to be, that one fateful night ...
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
Tell her to copy the songs directly the player. This is quite easy.
# lsusb # mkdir / # mount /dev/usb /
if it truly does have mass removable storege capabilities, this will work. use lsusb to find the devid of the device, the create a directory to mount it to and then mount the appropriate /dev/usb device. it may take a few tries to get the correct usb device, but this is how i got my Motorola i880 to show as a 1G removable drive.
The iRiver H320/H340 support both MTP and UMS, in the US versions. There's two USB ports, one for each standard. On the device they're labeled "DATA" and "MEDIA", where DATA is the UMS port for upgrading firmware, putting MP3s on, using as a USB hard drive, etc., and MEDIA is for loading PlaysForSure crap.
On the international version, the "MEDIA" port is used for USB Host functionality (and is labeled accordingly). One popular mod to the H320 is to load the international firmware (usually the Korean version), which forever removes the ability to play DRMed music (oh no!), and changes the port to a USB host port. Unfortunately, the hardware inside the player which generates the 5V power supply for the USB Host port was left out of the US players, so your device must be self-powered, and also not require 5V on the USB bus as a power-on signal as many devices do. Many people have hacked USB cables together to splice in the 5V, or hacked up self-powered standalone USB hubs, or even hacked the player itself to get power from somewhere else (except that it isn't a true 5V then). I'd like to add the appropriate missing components to my player, but I haven't found a good enough close-up photo of the international version's circuit board to discern what these are.