MP3 Players on Linux
MP3 Players on Linux
Matthew Treinish
LUG@GT
September 9, 2009
Matthew Treinish
Outline
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Matthew Treinish
Types of MP3 Players
Some different types of MP3 players available:
Generic Flash Players:
Basic devices with a typically small data capacity
Relatively cheap and
Operating Systems treat as a flash drive
Normally don’t have screens or if they do are small monochrome LCDs
Hard Drive Players
Also known as Digital Jukeboxes
Largest capacity of all MP3 devices
Normally contains a database to keep track of all the data on the device
Video/Audio Flash Players
Similar to the generic flash players but they have bigger color screens for video playback
Also, often have databases to organize content
Matthew Treinish
Types of MP3 Players
Some different types of MP3 players available:
Generic Flash Players:
Basic devices with a typically small data capacity
Relatively cheap and
Operating Systems treat as a flash drive
Normally don’t have screens or if they do are small monochrome LCDs
Hard Drive Players
Also known as Digital Jukeboxes
Largest capacity of all MP3 devices
Normally contains a database to keep track of all the data on the device
Video/Audio Flash Players
Similar to the generic flash players but they have bigger color screens for video playback
Also, often have databases to organize content
Matthew Treinish
Types of MP3 Players
Some different types of MP3 players available:
Generic Flash Players:
Basic devices with a typically small data capacity
Relatively cheap and
Operating Systems treat as a flash drive
Normally don’t have screens or if they do are small monochrome LCDs
Hard Drive Players
Also known as Digital Jukeboxes
Largest capacity of all MP3 devices
Normally contains a database to keep track of all the data on the device
Video/Audio Flash Players
Similar to the generic flash players but they have bigger color screens for video playback
Also, often have databases to organize content
Matthew Treinish
Popular MP3 Players
Generic Flash Player: iPod Shuffle
Creative Muvo
Sandisk Players
Hard drive players
Apple iPod Classic and previous models
Microsoft Zune 30,80,120
Certain Creative ZEN Models
Archos Jukebox Player
Video/Audio Flash Players iPod nano
Microsoft Zune 4,8,16,HD
Newer Creative ZEN models
Matthew Treinish
Generic Flash Devices
Simple devices which can normally be dealt with a file manager
However if you are too lazy to deal with this you can use a tool which will sync your collection for you; including: amaroK
Exaile
Songbird
Listen
All of these tools organize you music into a database and then give you the ability to sync the whole collection or just a subset of it with you various MP3 players.
Matthew Treinish
Apple iPod
Apple is evil!
Luckily FOSS is there and provides salvation
Software written using libgpod is needed to sync songs with iPod gtkpod is the package normally bundeled with libgpod and is written by the same group
Many Media player integrate libgpod including: amarok
Songbird (with a plugin)
Exaile
Rythmbox
Matthew Treinish
Microsoft Zune
If you think Apple is bad...
Matthew Treinish
Creative Players
Creative make a number of devices covering the spectrum of different types of MP3 players sold
They have two current lines of MP3 players
Creative ZEN
Very large model line
Most have large screens and can play video
Synchronization is possible using MTP (Media Transfer
Protocol) which most of the synchronization programs can use
Creative MuVo
Basically a flash drive with a headphone jack
Can be synced the same way as any of the other generic flash players
Matthew Treinish
Creative Players
Creative make a number of devices covering the spectrum of different types of MP3 players sold
They have two current lines of MP3 players
Creative ZEN
Very large model line
Most have large screens and can play video
Synchronization is possible using MTP (Media Transfer
Protocol) which most of the synchronization programs can use
Creative MuVo
Basically a flash drive with a headphone jack
Can be synced the same way as any of the other generic flash players
Matthew Treinish
RockBox
Rockbox is a powerful open source firmware
It adds more control over output and more input formats
Compatible with a large number of devices
Matthew Treinish
Extra Resources
Database of MP3 players and their linux compatibility http://www.tuxmobile.org/portable_players.html
Official libgpod website http://www.gtkpod.org/libgpod/
Official Rockbox Website http://www.rockbox.org
Matthew Treinish
