I am looking for an mp3 player that will work with Linux, that can play
formats like ogg and flac. I would like to hear suggestions.
Looking for something up to $100

Thanks

I have a Sansa Fuze which I adore. Pretty sure it will play ogg and flac although I just use mp3 on it. No problem using it on linux operating systems.

Just about *any* MP3 player will work fine with Linux.

However, relatively few players of any kind (outside of software applications you can run on your Linux PC) support audio formats like ogg or flac.

For better or worse, the most portable audio format for your music collection *isn't* iTunes, and *isn't* ogg or flac. It's wma, or MP3.

IMHO .. PSM

I also have a Sansa Fuze which works fine with Linux. The Fuze can be expanded through the micro SD slot in the side, so you can change cards for more storage.

Just set what ever player you get for MSC mode (so it show up as a USB stick) and you're good to go. MTP can cause trouble with some programs. (I don't bother with sync and all that, though rsync would work for that.) The Fuze will play MP3 & OGG format audio files, but I'm not sure about FLAC. I only use MP3 anyway since that's compatible with just about everything.

Have a look at Cowon's iAudio players.
They support Ogg,Flac and Mp3 out of the box.
Also there is no problem with Linux support because they use the universal mass storage protocol,rather than mtp.

http://www.cowonuk.com/

JosephS -

You really asked two separate questions. All of the responses gave you pretty much the same answer:

Q: Will my Mp3 device interoperate with Linux (successfully copy audio files and folders back and forth)?

A: Almost certainly, "Yes".
"Interoperability" is pretty much a non-issue.

Q: Will my Mp3 device play open (arguably superior) formats like Ogg or Flac?

A: For better or worse (and from an audiophile's standpoint, almost certainly "worse") just about everybody who's not locked in to a proprietary system like iTunes or Zune ... just uses MP3.

IMHO .. PSM

Check the xiph.org list of portable players that support their formats.

http://wiki.xiph.org/index.php/PortablePlayers

Also, accessing the device is not quite a non-issue. Many players use proprietary data interfaces, such as the Microsoft media transfer protocol and the iPod interface, that can be problematic and usually require specific software to access. Support for these two at least does exist on Linux now, but there have been problems in the past with support when sudden changes have been made to the protocols.

If you can, try to get a player that can be accessed as a standard USB block device (and do note that some players can be used as block devices for bulk storage, but still need special software for the manipulating the music player data).

Finally, you might be interested in rockbox for some of the popular players.