Suggest a (linux loving) portable music player
 

I was wondering if any of the good people here would suggest a music player to me. Things I'm looking for:

1) 4-8GB memory
2) Rugged. Gonna be knocking it around a lot
3) Prefer ogg vorbis support, but can live without
4) Must work with linux
5) Can't be too expensive!

By "work with linux" I mean in the most straightforward way possible. I understand I may give up some of what I want to get the best deal possible.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Kyle

I have a Sandisk player that works great with Linux.

It isn't 4-8 GB in memory, but I believe Sandisk does make models with that capacity (mine just isn't one of those models).

Also, I don't think it has Ogg support. Supposedly iRivers are pretty good with Ogg support.

I would suggest is checking out the players that use Secure Digital cards instead of internal memory. SD cards are dirt cheap now, and only getting bigger and cheaper. I have the one from lexar and am pretty happy with it. I think I spent around $30 for my player, and the other week I picked up another 1 GB SD card for $15. My only complaints are that it doesn't have a rechargeable battery (uses 1 AAA) and according to Lexar it is limited to using 1 GB cards (although I read the 2 GB cards will work). It doesn't support ogg but works otherwise great in linux (have tried with Ubuntu and Suse). Assuming you find a player which supports 4 GB cards, you can pick these up for $60 at newegg. My suggestion would be to start with what you need now, knowing you can buy more later for less.

One advantage to this kind of player is so long as you can get a card reader working in linux you can write your MP3s to the SD cards (the model I have also works fine hooked up directly via USB).

Thank you very much for your suggestions! It looks to me like I can (in a way) combine your suggestions with this Sandisk player. It has a SD expansion slot, and sounds like a great deal to me.

Also looking at the Nexblack.

slightly off topic, but I noticed this news article on the bbc news website:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/5312696.stm

FYI, the phone in the link says it supports microSD cards, not the Secure Digital ones I had in mind. It is still a nice feature, but from what I've seen these cards cost more (about 2x per MB) and tend to have lower capacity. The biggest microSD card they list on newegg is 1 GB starting at $35, which is $5 more than the 2 GB Secure Digital cards start at.

Edit: Of the two, I think the NEXBlack looks like a better deal. It supports Compact Flash cards (available today up to 8 GB) and it also supports ogg.

the iaudio m5 and x5 are great with linux, and built extremely well, they aren't flash players, but I thought I'd mention them, since they're some of the best players you can get.
if you want a deal, though. steer clear of them.

if the nexblack is a decent player(I can't find any reviews) it looks like the most desirable player, especially since if you run out of space you can swap in another CF card. it seems like it would be expensive after buying the card.