[vox-tech] portable mp3 player in linux

[boombox]

> On Wed, Dec 01, 2004 at 01:02:00PM -0800, Jennifer Stickel wrote:
>>
>> I am considering getting a portable mp3 player.  I was wondering if
>> anyone had suggestions on ones that work nicely in Linux.  Also what
>> is the opinion on the flash memory based devices versus the hard drive
>> based ones?
>
> I wanted a Linux-friendly player with a large capacity.  After somewhat
> extensive research, I ended up getting an iRiver H140 hard drive (40GB)
> player for the following reasons (in order of importance):
>
>  * USB 2.0/1.1 standard mass storage device (FAT32 file system)
>  * Ogg Vorbis support
>  * No digital rights management and/or copy protection
>  * On-board firmware upgrade
>  * WAV support
>  * Record to WAV or MP3
>  * SPDIF optical and line I/O
>  ... and not so important, but cool:
>  * Built-in mic for voice recording
>  * FM Tuner
>  * Fully functional remote with backlit LCD
>
> You'll definitely want to take advantage of USB 2.0, which means you'll
> need a USB 2.0 controller and a kernel > 2.4.20 (IIRC).  My laptop is
> USB 1.1, so I purchased an Adaptec USB 2.0 Cardbus adapter (any adapter
> with the NEC chipset should work), and the transfers are around 10x
> faster than the onboard USB.
>
> The only software you need is the program to create the binary music
> info database.  But there's an open source program that compiles on
> Linux (iripdb: http://www.marevalo.net/iRipDB/) that will create the
> database file from ID3 tags and Ogg info (the Windoze program doesn't
> index Ogg info).  This database allows you to search by
> artist/album/title/genre (play all songs by this artist, in this genre,
> etc.).  I've modified iripdb to fix several problems (broken genre
> assignment, incompatibility with older versions of id3lib, etc.).  I
> haven't gotten around to submitting the fixes to the author, but I'm
> happy to share them.
>
> Basically, this player works on any modern OS with USB and FAT32
> support, so you would never have to touch a Windows machine to deal with
> this player.  So far it's been great and works perfectly with Linux.  I
> believe some of the lower capacity iRiver flash players are also dumb
> storage devices with Ogg support, in case this one is overkill for you.
>
> -David

I will put in my two cents, although I didn’t do as extensive research as
David. I also <cough, cough> never used my MP3 player with Linux <moving
on to a less embarrassing topic>

I ended up buying a Creative Labs Nomad MuVo2 which is based on a
microdrive. I found that flash players just didn’t offer enough space for
the money. I felt that 256 MB was just too little, and I would never use
the 40 GB a hard disk drive player would offer me.

I bought the 1.5 GB version (just before the 4 GB version came out :) and
it holds all the music I listen to at one time. It does not skip, the
battery life is about 6-7 hours which is perfect for a day of skiing, and
it is still tiny. It takes a few seconds to get going but does not lack
after that. It’s also a USB 2.0 /1.1 standard mass storage device so it
should work with Linux.

The only disadvantage I see would be playlists. I believe you have to use
software from Creative to make playlists. However, it will play songs in a
folder alphabetically, or go through each folder alphabetically.

I have no regrets for choosing this player.

-boombox