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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.
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
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.
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
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 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!
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.
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.
Yes. Here's how I configured my laptop to automatically synchronize my mp3 player with my linux laptop. I just plug the player to the laptop usb port, and viola, moments later it's done. I already know this is going to bring heckles from the gui-only crowd, but it really is extremely convenient for me and it might be useful to some of you. You'll have to change the "model" to match your own player, and the music directories on your computer and mp3 player.
/etc/udev/rules.d/99-IAUDIO.rules:" , SYSFS{model} == "iAUDIO G3", GROUP="users", MODE="660", SYMLINK+="iaudio", RUN+="/bin/sh -c '(/bin/echo; /bin/date; /root/bin/iaudio) >> /tmp/udevlog 2>&1'"
/root/bin/iaudio:
/dev/iaudio /mnt/iaudio && /mnt/media/byartist/NPR/atc /mnt/iaudio/music /mnt/iaudio
#
KERNEL=="sd?1
#
#!/bin/sh
/bin/mount -v -t vfat -o gid=users,umask=007
/usr/bin/rsync --verbose --update --recursive --delete
/bin/umount
Comment removed based on user account deletion
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.