portable MP3 players
 

I am looking into purchasing a portable MP3 players and I'm wondering what you guys out there are using.

I'm aware that software has been written to use the iPod on Linux... but what about all those other MP3 players out there?

I know that the iPod is supposedly fantastic... but I think that it (along with all of Apple's other products) is also fantasticly overpriced... so I'm trying to find other options. Has any software been written for other MP3 players?:


:Pengy:

I'm not an expert, but I know that they use USB. Theorically, they're plugged in like removable disks, so you should be able to access them directly... not sure enough, though.
If this is the case, they'll we be shown under the hardware view of your control panel or by using usbview. After that, they should be accessible as SCSI devices, for example under /dev/sda, without any special software.

I suggest you trying with an mp3 player of a friend of yours, first. Anyway, what about the old "burn an mp3 cd and use it in an mp3 compatible cd player"?

Btw, do these players support OGG/VORBIS encoding? Just a curiosity of mine, anyway.

Currently I do not know of any portable MP3 players that support ogg. Most of the latest ones support MP3 and WMA.

I personally can't use an mp3 compatible CD player because I listen to it while im working out at the gym and stuff. Kinda hard to listen to a cd player when your running at a 7mph pace(it will skip).

None of them support OGG today, but I know there is one model that should support it soon, probably by end of the year. Neuros is the company making it.

I ended up buying a pair of Creative MuVO II players (one for me, one for wife) mostly because they were mispriced at Fry's ($79 instead of normal $150). It's pretty rugged, I use the armband that comes with it while doing various things such as hockey skating.

It also works flawlessly in RH9. I pop it in and it shows up as /dev/sda1. "mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/muvo" goes on without a hitch, and I'm loading files to it.

the Rio Karma <http://www.digitalnetworksna.com/sho...del=220&cat=53> Does support Ogg playback--how it gets along w/ linux is anyones guess??

i got a nomad muvo 64mb, yeah thats small, i know ;)
although i dont have alot of memory, its great for me, it can just plug it in, mount it, copy mp3's, umount it, and listen to them :)
i didnt need any special drivers for it, just had to enable fat support and usb removable media support in my kernel.
and btw the 128mb version of my player is pretty cheap now :D

Well after a bit of investigation on the Rio Karma, they do unofficially support linux, but, watchout, after browsing their forums it looks like the usb connection is not a mass storage device, so it looks like you would probably be stuck with their software. What a shame, I was almost sold on it too.

If interested, here's a good review:
Rio Karma Review - CNET

I have a somehow old yepp usb-player, except that I haven't got it working completely yet....altough I haven't tried to access it directly (like my usb-memory stick), only through some apps.

so accessing it directly should be possible? I mean, that there is no magical tricks that should be made to get the player play the stuff I put in there...? :)

gosh. how haven't I thought of that...well, fool is a fool :D

I would really like to hear how you go that to work mandika.