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?"

What do you use?

[Rik Sweeney]

Amarok [kde.org]

I never liked the iRiver

[bssteph]

My experience with iRivers is a bit old (it's before there was a libmtp), but here goes.

libmtp should work, in the normal "well, it's supposed to work" sense, (as listed at http://libmtp.sourceforge.net/index.php?page=compa tibility [sourceforge.net]) 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.

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_fea 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.

For actually syncing, I'm a junkie for simplicity: I use rsync and a directory full of symlinks to the music I want.

AmaroK.

[MoOsEb0y]

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.

I haven't tried it but ...

[eldavojohn]

... this [sourceforge.net] doesn't work?

From that project:

Unless otherwise noted, projects support all iRiver iFP devices. Users have reported successfully accessing models iFP-1xx,3xx,5xx,7xx,8xx,9xx and N10. We don't anticipate difficulty supporting future models.

(Note: iRiver offers 'UMS' firmware for some iFP models. Devices running UMS firmware are compatible with generic USB Mass Storage drivers, and do not need any of the drivers mentioned here.)

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.

Re:Please -- Mount Man

[grev]

Mounting won't do it for a lot of players. I have a Samsung YH-925 and although it functions as a UMS, when files are copied to the player they are not indexed, meaning you can't play any music without syncing it through a program like Windows Media Player.

Try looking on...

[Zwack]

Anything but Ipod [anythingbutipod.com] The forums are very helpful...

Some people in the Sandisk Sansa E200 Linux forum have run MTP Mode on Linux...

Z.

Using the irivier Clix on Linux

[GRW]

A quick Google search got me this: Using the irivier Clix on Linux [clixhere.net]

iRiver Howto

[NullProg]

http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_iRiver [gentoo-wiki.com]

Enjoy,

Re:What do you use?

[Timesprout]

This is one of the more polished Linux apps I have found in terms of UI and it works quite well but the 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.

Re:AmaroK.

[GrueMaster]

I also use Amarok, and the one irritating feature is that every storage device I plug in to the usb port gets picked up by Amarok (it pops up a screen asking if it should sync music). I have 3 iRirver IFP-79x series mp3/ogg players, two are using their IFP firmware, the third is using a UMS firmware. All three work perfectly with Amarok.

Re:What do you use?

[Stocktonian]

Yep, just use Amarok.

That's why we sell our linux laptops with Kubuntu. The Gnome defaults just don't measure up.

---
http://www.linuxlaptops.eu/ [linuxlaptops.eu] Guaranteed Linux comapatbility

Sansa m200 series with Rockbox

[joedoc]

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 [rockbox.org] 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.

Re:What do you use?

[Anonymous Coward]

If I left it open (like I do with Winamp now) it would use all my computer's resources within a week, causing me to restart more often than I'd wanted to!

Why should you restart your computer to clear the resources -- this is Linux we're talking about, not Windows.

Re:Please -- Mount Man

[bzipitidoo]

I also have a Samsung. It's a Samsung Yepp (YP-U2J I think-- I know the 'U' is in there and think 'U' stands for US). I got it because that was the only one I could find locally that can do Ogg Vorbis. And that only after flashing the player with a European ROM. (Details on how to flash the Yepp are here [xiph.org].) The flash was also necessary to get it to behave like a USB memory stick. Without that ROM update, I could not move files (Ogg Vorbis or MP3 or whatever) on and off it just like it was a plain old flash drive.

The problem is the politics in the music player, not the music player per se, and not Linux. Most of them won't play nice with USB. They're programmed to support only this Windows protocol, MTP. Don't know enough about MTP itself to know for sure if it's good, or free, but MTP comes from MS and supports DRM, and that's enough for me. Also, I read a rumor at the link I gave above that MS has done much to make Ogg Vorbis unavailable in the US.

Re:For mass storage devices

[timeOday]

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:
KERNEL=="sd?1" , 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:
#!/bin/sh

/bin/mount -v -t vfat -o gid=users,umask=007 /dev/iaudio /mnt/iaudio &&
/usr/bin/rsync --verbose --update --recursive --delete /mnt/media/byartist/NPR/atc /mnt/iaudio/music
/bin/umount /mnt/iaudio

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

WTF is MTP? Clarity...

[Envy Life]

Use rsync.

I had the same thought going into this. I have an iRiver H320 that works like a mass storage device and the simplicity of that makes this whole thread dumbfounding. A quick search brought up this informative article Liberate Portable Music Players: UMS, MTP, and Platform-Agnostic Drag-and-Drop Music Listening [createdigitalmusic.com]

Re:What do you use?

[xXenXx]

It works with iPods apparently. I know the topic was on syncing music, but if you use a filemanager to manually copy songs over then you really don't have any need for that feature.

For anyone that doesn't sync music, and wants what is basically a GTK clone of Amarok, Exaile is a great player.