mp3 players and linux

[D_underscore]

so...
im looking into getting a portable mp3 player. possibly a sony one.
i understand that the software for most mp3 players is for windows and macs only.
i have also heard of people able to use mp3 players in a linux enviroment.
enlighten me, please.

i am using X-dsl (xbox) from the live cd, i am not able to use wine.

thx.

[dylunio]

I know people who have got iRiver, and they just mount it in Linux and copy over the mp3's, I also think that they support .ogg format of music which is open source.

[jeickal]

I own a iriver H320. It is FULLY linux friendly. Like dylunio said you mount it like an external USB storage. And I found this soft to generate the music file DB needed to have music classified by artist/genre/album:
http://www.shredzone.net/projects/ifish/
It does support OGG which is one of the reasons I picked this one. And I don't regret it. This H320 really :rock:

OK I know it's quite expensive...

[borromini]

I have an iRiver iFP-899, and it's just great. There are programs available for the KDE & Gnome environment to use it under Linux - with almost all the functions as the proprietary Windows software (I didn't flash my firmware, so it's not recognised as a UMS device, just as an mp3-player).

[bigtomrodney]

I second the iRiver buzz
They're great and platform independent. They do take about 20 secs to boot, which sucks bbut they are looking to rebuild the database every time they boot. There is an unoffical firmware upgrade which is supposed to be excellent, but I don't want to upgrade until I know it will still support ogg and not cause any linux problems. Apparently it boots in 2 seconds after the upgrade and comes with good recommendations.

[Cabhan]

Again, iRiver.

I use the iRiver H320. Plug it in, "mount /mnt/usb" and you're good to go.

Also, it supports OGG, so you can keep living the OSS lifestyle.


The only issue is in regards to playlists, since they all have to be generated externally (via XMMS or something). In that case, you can write a simple script (or better yet, find an existing one on www.misticriver.net) to convert it to an iRiver-readable one.

Yeah. Simple and easy.

[cayalee]

most of the cheapo usb pen sticks work fine as well as they are just flash memory drives. if youre using suse or mandrake etc they auto mount and you can just drag and drop files onto em. theyre cheap but have generally low capacity (think 1gb is biggest ive seen)

[D_underscore]

mount /mnt/usb

so i ended up picking up a sony lyra mp3 player, anyone have any experience with one?

i read online somewhere that someone made a driver called "usbat2" that apparently works, but in order to use it you have to compile it into the kernel. this sucks for me because i dont really know what i am doing

anyways, if anyone knows about lyra mp3's or usbat2 leme know .

[Cabhan]

Well, I went and checked the kernel. USBAT is available at:

Device Drivers --> USB Support --> USBAT/USBAT-2-based storage support

As a note, it's an experimental thing. I don't usually use them, but you can give it a shot and always take it out if it screws stuff up.


As far as configuring a kernel goes, you're gonna want to check the /usr/src/linux directory. If it doesn't exist, you'll need to download the kernel sources at http://www.kernel.org. You'll need to configure from scratch, though.

If the directory does exist, check if a .config file exists there (that's dot config). If so, you just need to type:

make menuconfig

And you can just add the USBAT support. If a .config file doesn't exist, you will need to do it from scratch.

[vickistanfield]

I have an iRIVER iFP-899 too, but I have always used the ifp software to access it. This prevents me, however, from copying any mp3s on the device via USB. Is anyone just mounting this device as a usb device under Linux? I have some mp3s on there that I would love to move back to my harddrive (which is where they lived before my old harddrive crashed).

Vicki