Greetings group,
I am new(ish) to the open source world and am looking for some help with the Sandisk Sansa M250 . I currently run Kubuntu Dapper Drake (KDE 3.5.2) on an older machine (AMD XP1800) . I am using Amarok 1.4.2. I would like to know how to set the Sansa M250 up correctly/efficiently. Basically, I would like to boot up the player and be able to choose between categories i.e. Podcasts/Music/ Audiobooks or something that resembles perhaps a playlist. I just got this thing (M250) today, mind you, but have been having a devil or a time trying to get things organized. I also have another problem. I initially just did a plug n' play with the unit and it was recognized by my system. The unit itself was on Settings>USB>Automatic. I transfered a "Netlibrary" .wma file to it just to see if it would work. I figured it wouldn't....but tried so anyway. It didn't, as expected, due to their proprietary encrypting (if anyone knows anything about decrypting "Netlibrary" .wma files, let me know...I would sure like to be able to listen to audiobooks I check out from my public library via linux/Sansa M250). In the Konqueror browser window...I deleted the file from the AUDIBLE folder. When in Konqueror under media:/sdb1 I have the following folders/files: AUDIBLE, CONFIG, RECORD and a file called SYS_CONF.DNC. I then loaded another .mp3 that was not DRM restricted. It worked. Ok sweet, I said. But the Sansa M250 still listed the track I had deleted, although it wouldn't play. How can I get rid of these "ghost files?" Are they taking up flash memory? I then went through Amarok, which is great on the desktop, but seems a little finicky when trying to transfer song to a flash memory MP3 player. Sure, I transfered some more songs but, those damn "ghost files" still appear on the player (i.e. I physically transfer 10 files, deleted 2 and the Sansa M250 still says I have 10 files on there) when I delete them via Konqueror (i.e. normally). Maybe this is just a poorly executed player...perhaps I am too inexperienced with linux/Amarok...not sure. Any help would be greatly apprecited. Here are links (sorry can't post URL's yet) that I have found/ read that I believed would have helped me. They really didn't but, perhaps I don't understand the material.



I just want to be able to drag/drop files and have a little organization with the Sansa M250. Also get rid of the files I know I deleted. Any help greatly apprecited.

Sincerely,
Jeff

I recently bought a m240 which has those same folders already on it. From my experience so far I've had much success by just putting the files on the root of the device, not in any subfolders. Of course that doesn't provide any organization other than alphabetizing filenames. And I haven't tried anything other than non-protected mp3 files. I did experience some corrupt files once when I deleted my original files before they finished transferring. To get rid of them I had to, as root, 1)connect the device, 2)mount, 3)delete one file, 4)umount, then 5)unplug. I had to do that for each corrupt file. Non-corrupt files are fine. And I haven't tried using Amarok to transfer. I always use Konqueror or Midnight Commander. Maybe it'll help if you to first mount it to a directory to work from such as /mnt/Sansa. You can assign permissions when mouting so normal users can transfer files.

Hi -

See yahoo groups (SanddiskDigitalAudioPlayers) and wikibooks (Sandisk Sansa MP3 players/e200 ) for help.

To summarize: the m250 database reads the id3v1 tags of the mp3 and organizes title, album and artist using those only (not filenames or folders). I use AudioTagTool to batch change artist and album for the podcasts I listen to.

But the audio books (free online from my library) need windows and mtp - which does not see the msc files. If, using linux and msc, I don't mess with the files I load using mtp everything stays nice.

Hope this helps!
Charlotte

I don't know if that helps or not but I had some issues with my mp3 players and I found a great solution in a tech support site.
Here is the page for Sansa_m250 Support

Let me know what happened

Marcella