Linux Compatible Portable Media Players - Suggestions and Comments

[TheAlmightyOS]

My Creative Zen Micro just died on me So I am now in the market for a new MP3 player. From my experience I know it is hard to find a Media Player that is Linux Compatible. They don't (usually) put that kinda info on the box.

So instead of reading 1000+ reviews on 100+ devices, I am going to cheat and ask all of you what your opinions, suggestions, experiences and comments on the issue.

Personally, I think it would be helpful to anyone else that wonders though here asking the same questions.

[rokytnji]

I use a cheap RCA 2 gig player from Walmart that works ok in Linux.

Walmart.com: RCA Opal 4GB MP3 Audio/Video Player: Audio

[D-cat]

Most USB "pen drive" type players will work fine. These are basically just regular pen drives with a MP3 player added on top. To Linux, it's no different than every other USB flash drive.

[Artesia]

I have an iPod Classic 160GB and use it fine wtih linux now. I say "now" because I've been to hell and back with this thing but if I had just done it right the first time, it would have been painless. I recomend that if you do buy an iPod, do your research before you do anything to it.

[techieMoe]

I have used a 2nd generation iPod Nano and a 2008-model Sansa Clip 2GB in Ubuntu. The iPod had drag-and-drop support through Rhythmbox, but not the file system. The Sansa had drag-and-drop support through the file system, but not Rhythmbox. Neither one supported creating playlists, and I had trouble going between Windows and Linux on the Clip. Songs I added on one OS didn't show up on the other (but were detected and playable on the device itself). Tags were sometimes messed up when I copied them over to the Clip.

Really, I can't recommend either at this point. Perhaps support will improve, but I was quite unimpressed with those two when it came to Linux performance.

[TheAlmightyOS]

Thanks for the info Artesia. But methinks hell will have a snowday before I get an ipod

What did you have to do to get it to work?

That sounds familiar TechieMoe. I think I had the same issues with an iriver player

Edit>> My typing is horrible today. I must have edited this post 6 times for spelling/typing errors

[Artesia]

Thanks for the info Artesia. But methinks hell will have a snowday before I get an ipod

What did you have to do to get it to work?

Well in the beginning, I could upload all the music but it wasn't showing up on the iPod. Turned out that I needed to delete all the folders out of the iPod's directory and let Amarok reinitialize it. (You can use other apps besides Amarok.) This was a very important detail that for some reason eluded me for some time.

And then, I had a really major episode with it that took aver a month to fix. You can read about the experience in detail in this thread: Can't mount iPod - disk label issues. I have a good time now relating that story to my geek friends.

[SagaciousKJB]

I haven't really tried a lot of MP3 players, so I don't really know many that work well with Linux right out of the box, but if it's worth it to you ( and you don't mind voiding your warranty ) you can install Rockbox, which is an opensource firmware replacement that works on a lot of players out now. I find it especially pleasing because i can just plug the MP3 player into the computer, access it like a hard-drive, and store MP3s on it without having to run them through iTunes or Toshiba's Gigabeat ( sloooowwww ).

If you want to find something that you can use the default firmware with, though, I'm not really any help. I can say that I prefer Rockbox over the Gigabeat F40 firmware and the iPod video's firmware that my sister has.

[TheAlmightyOS]

Yeah, I forgot about that!

As of this posting RockBox works on the following players:
* Apple: 1st through 5.5th generation iPod, iPod Mini and 1st generation iPod Nano
(not the Shuffle, 2nd/3rd/4th gen Nano, Classic or Touch)
* Archos: Jukebox 5000, 6000, Studio, Recorder, FM Recorder, Recorder V2 and Ondio
* Cowon: iAudio X5, X5V, X5L, M5, M5L, M3 and M3L
* iriver: H100, H300 and H10 series
* Olympus: M:Robe 100
* SanDisk: Sansa c200, e200 and e200R series (not the AMS models)
* Toshiba: Gigabeat X and F series (not the S series)

I don't think I can link to their site, but if you think this is the way you want to go google their name, comes up on the top of the first page.

Personally, I am going to check it out but still want to hear more experiences / discussion.


EDIT>> The more I look at the Iriver H320 the more I like it. Think I will start with a cheap used one (because RockBox voids warranty anyway) and take it from there.