From lists@dansanderson.com Tue Nov 19 23:58:35 2002 Received: from mailscan3.cac.washington.edu (mailscan3.cac.washington.edu [140.142.32.168]) by lists.u.washington.edu (8.12.1+UW01.12/8.12.1+UW02.11) with SMTP id gAK7wYrw013310 for ; Tue, 19 Nov 2002 23:58:34 -0800 Received: FROM mxu7.u.washington.edu BY mailscan3.cac.washington.edu ; Tue Nov 19 23:58:33 2002 -0800 Received: from jareth.dreamhost.com (jareth.dreamhost.com [66.33.198.201]) by mxu7.u.washington.edu (8.12.1+UW01.12/8.12.1+UW02.11) with ESMTP id gAK7wXQl030879 for ; Tue, 19 Nov 2002 23:58:33 -0800 Received: from genki.dreamhost.com (basic-noxim.genki.dreamhost.com [66.33.198.51]) by jareth.dreamhost.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 13F3F6B5F9 for ; Tue, 19 Nov 2002 23:58:33 -0800 (PST) Received: from localhost (dsanders@localhost) by genki.dreamhost.com (8.11.0/8.9.3/Debian 8.9.3-21) with ESMTP id gAK7wWV06788 for ; Tue, 19 Nov 2002 23:58:32 -0800 X-Authentication-Warning: genki.dreamhost.com: dsanders owned process doing -bs Date: Tue, 19 Nov 2002 23:58:32 -0800 (PST) From: Dan Sanderson X-X-Sender: dsanders@genki.dreamhost.com To: linux@u.washington.edu Subject: Portable MP3 players compatible with Linux? Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Hey all - I'm thinking of buying a low-end, portable, no-moving-parts music player. Do we have Linux compatibility with any portable music players yet? To answer my own question, here's a Rio 500-with-Linux project, with accompanying tools, that looks promising: http://rio500.sourceforge.net/ Another project exists for experimental Rio 600 and 800 support: http://rioutil.sourceforge.net/ I've also found a few small command-line utilities for a few players. The ones that access hardware directly must be run as root, and I'm not sure I want to limit my selection of players to just these three: http://www.world.co.uk/sba/ I'm asking a question I've already partly answered in case there are better answers I'm unaware of. I haven't bought a device yet, and if there's a good one out there with better Linux support, it'd win points. I'm not sure I want a Rio 600. ("Memory backpacks"? Ick.) I have a used Rio 500 sitting in front of me, but it doesn't work very well. Maybe what I want is a working Rio 500. And yes, iPod projects abounds: http://www.blinkenlights.ch/cgi-bin/fm.pl?get=ipode http://neuron.com/~jason/ipod.html http://ipod-on-linux.sourceforge.net/ (including this last one which uses third-party Windows iPod software and Wine:) http://www.cs.duke.edu/~geha/ipod/ though I'm not interested in an iPod right now. (Well, I *am* interested, but for now I'm looking for a no-moving-parts player. The $500 20GB iPod will be mine some day, just not today.) Is it possible to use a memory card reader/writer to load a card with music, then put it in a music player? Do players store music on memory cards in a standard format such that basic file system functions are enough, by any chance? Are there memory card reader/writer drivers for Linux? The Ogg Vorbis FAQ says no music player hardware currently supports it, so I won't bother to ask (though they mention an Ogg player for the Sharp Zaurus, which is interesting). Disregarding the Linux-related questions (and thereby taking this OT and off this list), anyone have a no-moving-parts music player to recommend? Thanks, all! -- Dan .