Mailing List Archive

Hi
For the first question, I don´t known...I just have a cd mp3 player. :)

For the second one. Don´t get a ogg player. I don´t have nothing
against the format, but if you take a look in the offers, all the big
companies are making WMA and MP3 compatible. WMA, we known WHO is
pushing this format...and the MP3, because everyone have a mp3 lying
around.

Ogg its too crispy for my taste, I prefer a Lame extreme preset mp3.

Andres

On Sun, 26 Sep 2004 12:22:14 +0800, Zhang Weiwu <zhangweiwu@realss.com> wrote:
> Hello. I never used a mp3 player before. Is mp3 players simply a umess
> device, like my cameras, or does them need a specific drive? I remember
> once I glance over all kernel devices, there was a "diamond" mp3 player
> drive, does this mean Linux kernel support this player better than
> others, and I should buy it?
>
> And is ogg player common on the market? I am considering buying a second
> hand product, does that mean I mostly won't get a ogg player?
>
> Thank you.
>
> --
> gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
>
>



--
---

When we are young
Wandering the face of the Earth
Wondering what our dreams might be worth
Learning that we're only immortal
For a limited time

Neil Peart - Dreamline

--
gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

On Sun, 26 Sep 2004 12:22:14 +0800, Zhang Weiwu <zhangweiwu@realss.com> wrote:
> Hello. I never used a mp3 player before. Is mp3 players simply a umess
> device

It depends on the device. I believe that most are these days.

>, like my cameras, or does them need a specific drive? I remember
> once I glance over all kernel devices, there was a "diamond" mp3 player
> drive, does this mean Linux kernel support this player better than
> others, and I should buy it?

No. The Diamond Rios were among the very early mp3 players. I don't
think they are USB mass storage based (hence why they need special
treatment by the kernel).

I haven't seen any around for a long time (well, other then my 16MB
unit which is
gathering dust on a shelf), but Google suggests that they company has
been bought
up and they are still being sold ... perhaps just in N. America. The
newer units might
enjoy USB Mass Storage support.

My personal preferences for this sort of thing these days are my mp3
CD player, and
my Palm Tungsten T2 (since RealOne does a decent job of playing mp3s and I can
use a $10 5-in-1 card reader to put mp3s on my SD Card (using USB Mass
Storage)).

--
David Dorward <http://dorward.me.uk><http://blog.dorward.me.uk>

--
gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

On Sunday 26 September 2004 04:46 am, David Dorward wrote:
> On Sun, 26 Sep 2004 12:22:14 +0800, Zhang Weiwu <zhangweiwu@realss.com>
wrote:
> > Hello. I never used a mp3 player before. Is mp3 players simply a umess
> > device
>
> It depends on the device. I believe that most are these days.
>
> >, like my cameras, or does them need a specific drive? I remember
> > once I glance over all kernel devices, there was a "diamond" mp3 player
> > drive, does this mean Linux kernel support this player better than
> > others, and I should buy it?
>
> No. The Diamond Rios were among the very early mp3 players. I don't
> think they are USB mass storage based (hence why they need special
> treatment by the kernel).
>
> I haven't seen any around for a long time (well, other then my 16MB
> unit which is
> gathering dust on a shelf), but Google suggests that they company has
> been bought
> up and they are still being sold ... perhaps just in N. America. The
> newer units might
> enjoy USB Mass Storage support.
>
> My personal preferences for this sort of thing these days are my mp3
> CD player, and
> my Palm Tungsten T2 (since RealOne does a decent job of playing mp3s and I
> can use a $10 5-in-1 card reader to put mp3s on my SD Card (using USB Mass
> Storage)).

I've Had excellent luck with CREATIVE MUVO and IAUDIO U2. Both are quite small
and mount fine under linux.

Cheers.



--

******************************************************************************
Registered Linux User Number 185956
FSF Associate Member number 2340 since 05/20/2004
Join me in chat at #linux-users on irc.freenode.net
Buy an Xbox for $149.00, run linux on it and Microsoft loses $150.00!
1:57pm up 26 days, 14:10, 7 users, load average: 2.75, 2.30, 2.09

--
gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

On Sun, 2004-09-26 at 12:22 +0800, Zhang Weiwu wrote:
> Hello. I never used a mp3 player before. Is mp3 players simply a umess
> device, like my cameras, or does them need a specific drive? I remember
> once I glance over all kernel devices, there was a "diamond" mp3 player
> drive, does this mean Linux kernel support this player better than
> others, and I should buy it?
>
> And is ogg player common on the market? I am considering buying a second
> hand product, does that mean I mostly won't get a ogg player?

I have an iriver ihp-120 (I believe the naming scheme has since changed,
but it is the 20GB Hard-disk player). It does ogg pretty well, and
mounts as a usb mass storage device.

I don't have anything other than about a dozen downloaded mp3s, but I
have 10GB of ogg-encoded ripped cds from my collection.

It is also supposed to play WMA, but I don't have a windows license for
the machine it is usually connected to, so I've never tried it in
windows.

--
Chris I <chris@cidesign.ca>

quoth the Chris I:

> I have an iriver ihp-120 (I believe the naming scheme has since changed,
> but it is the 20GB Hard-disk player). It does ogg pretty well, and
> mounts as a usb mass storage device.

I have been looking far and wide for a portable that plays oggs and I believe
that the iRiver is the only one.....

-d
--
Part of the problem since 1976
http://badcomputer.no-ip.com
Get my public key from
http://keyserver.linux.it/pks/lookup?op=index&search=bulliver
"...the number of UNIX installations has grown to 10, with more expected..."
- Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson, June 1972

I have and iPod and with gtkpod you can use without problems under
linux... but it doesn't support ogg...

David GP


On Sun, 26 Sep 2004 20:50:02 -0700, Darren Kirby
<bulliver@badcomputer.no-ip.com> wrote:
> quoth the Chris I:
>
> > I have an iriver ihp-120 (I believe the naming scheme has since changed,
> > but it is the 20GB Hard-disk player). It does ogg pretty well, and
> > mounts as a usb mass storage device.
>
> I have been looking far and wide for a portable that plays oggs and I believe
> that the iRiver is the only one.....
>
> -d
> --
> Part of the problem since 1976
> http://badcomputer.no-ip.com
> Get my public key from
> http://keyserver.linux.it/pks/lookup?op=index&search=bulliver
> "...the number of UNIX installations has grown to 10, with more expected..."
> - Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson, June 1972
>
>
>
>

--
gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

> I have been looking far and wide for a portable that plays oggs and I believe
> that the iRiver is the only one.....

The Neuros player handles OGG's and is quite a lot of bang for your
buck, so I've heard.

http://www.neurosaudio.com



--
Free image hosting at http://www.rickserver.com

--
gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

On Sun, 2004-09-26 at 00:22, Zhang Weiwu wrote:
> Hello. I never used a mp3 player before. Is mp3 players simply a umess
> device, like my cameras, or does them need a specific drive? I remember
> once I glance over all kernel devices, there was a "diamond" mp3 player
> drive, does this mean Linux kernel support this player better than
> others, and I should buy it?
>
> And is ogg player common on the market? I am considering buying a second
> hand product, does that mean I mostly won't get a ogg player?

The ogg-capable players I'm aware of are:

Rio Karma
iRiver (most, or all of the iRivers stuff?)
Neuros

When I bought an ogg player a few months ago, the choice came down to
the Rio Karma or the Neuros--I liked the Neuros so much I didn't even
get around to really researching the iRiver. I chose the Neuros
because:

1. The company (Digital Innovations) is Linux-friendly, and has a
"support our existing customers with upgrades instead of having them buy
a whole new player every year" disposition.

2. DI people--even Joe Born, the Chairman/CTO!--regularly post in the
forums at www.neurosaudio.com. It's a refreshing change from the more
cold and aloof relationship most companies seem to have with their
customers.

3. The Neuros is designed as two separate parts that connect
together--the "brain" which has the screen, controls, and flash memory,
and a "backpack" which has the hard drive and battery. For the flash
player, the backpack is smaller and just has a battery. This makes it
very upgradeable (if you later decide you need more hard drive space,
for example, you can just buy a new backpack instead of replacing the
whole player).

4. Great price--especially the flash/HD bundle, which is basically the
Neuros with a small backpack to power the flash memory, and a larger
hard drive backpack. So you can switch back and forth between having
lots of HD space, or having a more compact flash player for things like
jogging, biking, etc. (jogging with a hard drive is not a good idea!).
The Neuros bundle is a lot less expensive than buying separate HD and
flash players from other companies.

5. Some nice extra features, like being able to transmit music to a
nearby radio over an FM station. It's kinda cool to have your
stereo/car radio/boombox/whatever playing music transmitted from your
Neuros.

The only downside to the Neuros is that, with the HD backpack, it's a
little bulkier than other mp3 players. That's perfectly fine with me
(especially since it's so much cheaper than the tiny iPod-sized
players). The only time I need it to be smaller is when I'm working
out--which is when I leave the HD behind and use the smaller flash
player, anyway.

Anyway, as you can guess by now, it works fine in Linux. I plug the USB
cable in and it's mountable as /dev/sda1 (this requires SCSI-emulation
enabled in the kernel, as well as appropriate USB drivers of course).
While it's possible to simply copy files over to it, it does use a
database to keep track of the music files (files won't show up in the
Neuros's menus unless they're in the database), and you need software
for handling the database. Fortunately, there are two options that work
fine in Linux:

Positron (which is made by xiph.org (yeah, the ogg people))
NDBM (Neuros DataBase Manipulator--a java program that works fine in
Linux)

I use NDBM and it works fine.

I only had one difficulty with the Neuros in Linux, and that was because
Via's USB controllers suck. I could sync with the USB 2.0 HD backpack
fine, but the USB 1.1 port on the brain (which has to be used for the
flash player) and my Via-based USB controllers did not get along well at
all. I popped in an NEC-based USB controller to plug the Neuros into,
and that worked fine. (You can see plenty of info about this in the
forums at www.neurosaudio.com).

Tom


--
gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

[SNIP]
>
> When I bought an ogg player a few months ago, the choice came down to
> the Rio Karma or the Neuros--I liked the Neuros so much I didn't even
> get around to really researching the iRiver. I chose the Neuros
> because:
>
>
> 3. The Neuros is designed as two separate parts that connect
> together--the "brain" which has the screen, controls, and flash memory,
> and a "backpack" which has the hard drive and battery. For the flash
> player, the backpack is smaller and just has a battery. This makes it
> very upgradeable (if you later decide you need more hard drive space,
> for example, you can just buy a new backpack instead of replacing the
> whole player).
>

Had to do this with mine as the hard drive eventually died. Really
easy to do - just uncrew the case. Takes a standard laptop drive.
I picked up a 20GB at my local computer store and slid it in.

>
> 5. Some nice extra features, like being able to transmit music to a
> nearby radio over an FM station. It's kinda cool to have your
> stereo/car radio/boombox/whatever playing music transmitted from your
> Neuros.
>

Just don't lose the cable. The plug is not the same such that any off the
shelf cable will work.

> The only downside to the Neuros is that, with the HD backpack, it's a
> little bulkier than other mp3 players. That's perfectly fine with me
> (especially since it's so much cheaper than the tiny iPod-sized
> players). The only time I need it to be smaller is when I'm working
> out--which is when I leave the HD behind and use the smaller flash
> player, anyway.
>
> Anyway, as you can guess by now, it works fine in Linux. I plug the USB
> cable in and it's mountable as /dev/sda1 (this requires SCSI-emulation
> enabled in the kernel, as well as appropriate USB drivers of course).
> While it's possible to simply copy files over to it, it does use a
> database to keep track of the music files (files won't show up in the
> Neuros's menus unless they're in the database), and you need software
> for handling the database. Fortunately, there are two options that work
> fine in Linux:
>
> Positron (which is made by xiph.org (yeah, the ogg people))
> NDBM (Neuros DataBase Manipulator--a java program that works fine in
> Linux)
>
> I use NDBM and it works fine.
>

Neither work fine for me for a couple of reasons - well, my guess at
the reasons. I run an SMP system plus have around 200+ albums - > 2,000
individual tracks, all ogg, and both programs tend to die or hang most times.

Eventually, I re-tried enough times that Positron worked. But it wouldn't
sync to my office computer from the Neuros. (Yeah I'm a strange case.)

What stopped me from using my Neuros daily is the sound sucks. But then
it does for the vast majority of portable players. It turns out the
sound output from my Sharp C860 PDA is much better than a lot of things I've
tried. So my plan for more portable audio is to get the USB host adapter
compact flash card for the Sharp and use the Neuros as a file storage device
as it's battery lasts longer than the Sharp's (at about 4.5 hrs).

So the problem is the Sharp is very expensive and not as portable as an
iRiver, but more so than a Neuros. And with Compact Flash cards space
is limited - 512MB are the better price/performance options at the moment.

Compact Flash diskdrives can be had, but while offering up to 5GB of space
suck down 340ma vs. a mere 34ma that a Compact Flash card will use.

The upside of the Sharp PDA is you can watch movies on it - rip DVD videos,
but that's a real timeconsuming chore. But it does make traveling around
less problemmatic.

Bob

--
gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

On Mon, 2004-09-27 at 18:40, Bob Sanders wrote:
> > 3. The Neuros is designed as two separate parts that connect
> > together--the "brain" which has the screen, controls, and flash memory,
> > and a "backpack" which has the hard drive and battery. For the flash
> > player, the backpack is smaller and just has a battery. This makes it
> > very upgradeable (if you later decide you need more hard drive space,
> > for example, you can just buy a new backpack instead of replacing the
> > whole player).
> >
>
> Had to do this with mine as the hard drive eventually died. Really
> easy to do - just uncrew the case. Takes a standard laptop drive.
> I picked up a 20GB at my local computer store and slid it in.

Heh, I was of course referring to the fact that you can buy new HD
_backpacks_, though you also do bring up the point that the Neuros is
relatively easy to tinker with if you want to replace the HD or battery
within the backpack on your own.

Speaking of the battery, I forgot to mention that if the Neuros's
battery (lithium ion) dies and stops taking a charge, DI only charges
(IIRC) $10 to replace it. Compare to the $100 Apple charges for
replacing iPod batteries.

> > 5. Some nice extra features, like being able to transmit music to a
> > nearby radio over an FM station. It's kinda cool to have your
> > stereo/car radio/boombox/whatever playing music transmitted from your
> > Neuros.
> >
>
> Just don't lose the cable. The plug is not the same such that any off the
> shelf cable will work.

Which cable are you referring to? I'm confused, since you quoted me
mentioning a feature that doesn't involve cables. So is it the AC or
the USB cable that's non-standard?


> Neither work fine for me for a couple of reasons - well, my guess at
> the reasons. I run an SMP system plus have around 200+ albums - > 2,000
> individual tracks, all ogg, and both programs tend to die or hang most times.

Strange... were using a newer USB 2.0 backpack, or the older USB 1.1
connection? I only get behavior like that if I'm using the USB 1.1
connection with a VIA-controlled USB port. In that case, even trying to
move files over from the command line results in hangs, segfaults, and
plenty of other badness.

> What stopped me from using my Neuros daily is the sound sucks. But then
> it does for the vast majority of portable players. It turns out the
> sound output from my Sharp C860 PDA is much better than a lot of things I've
> tried. So my plan for more portable audio is to get the USB host adapter
> compact flash card for the Sharp and use the Neuros as a file storage device
> as it's battery lasts longer than the Sharp's (at about 4.5 hrs).

The sound quality seems fine to me--certainly doesn't seem any worse
than, say, a walkman or discman. But I'll be the first to admit that
I'm no audiophile.

Tom


--
gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

> >
> > Just don't lose the cable. The plug is not the same such that any off the
> > shelf cable will work.
>
> Which cable are you referring to? I'm confused, since you quoted me
> mentioning a feature that doesn't involve cables. So is it the AC or
> the USB cable that's non-standard?
>
>

No, as you infer below, I've got an older version ofthe Neuros and it needs
a cable (antenna) to enable the tramsmitting to another radio. It uses a
aub-earphone plug size jack. Perhaps the new ones have the antenna built
in?

> > Neither work fine for me for a couple of reasons - well, my guess at
> > the reasons. I run an SMP system plus have around 200+ albums - > 2,000
> > individual tracks, all ogg, and both programs tend to die or hang most times.
>
> Strange... were using a newer USB 2.0 backpack, or the older USB 1.1
> connection? I only get behavior like that if I'm using the USB 1.1
> connection with a VIA-controlled USB port. In that case, even trying to
> move files over from the command line results in hangs, segfaults, and
> plenty of other badness.
>

It's a compound thing - USB 1.1 with an AMD chipset, thus the less tested ochi
driver. Plus several firmware upgrades over the year. It actually worked
better most of time on my office system which has a VIA southbridge. Still
it was, for a time painful. The new USB 2.0 versions appear to be much better.

>
> The sound quality seems fine to me--certainly doesn't seem any worse
> than, say, a walkman or discman. But I'll be the first to admit that
> I'm no audiophile.
>

The main reason I went for the Neuros and Ogg format was mp3 format always
drove me nuts with it's lack of bass and irritating high end that gave me
headaches. But then, I've spent many years with hacking audio equipment
for better sound - Radio Shack 3400 CD player, hacked it for direct coupled
output and used RC model batteries for a power source, etc. So sound quality
really does matter to me, as does artist performance and the music itself.

Bob

--
gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

On Sun, 26 Sep 2004 12:22:14 +0800, Zhang Weiwu <zhangweiwu@realss.com> wrote:
> Hello. I never used a mp3 player before. Is mp3 players simply a umess
> device, like my cameras, or does them need a specific drive? I remember
> once I glance over all kernel devices, there was a "diamond" mp3 player
> drive, does this mean Linux kernel support this player better than
> others, and I should buy it?
>
> And is ogg player common on the market? I am considering buying a second
> hand product, does that mean I mostly won't get a ogg player?
>
> Thank you.

I love my Creative Nomad Xen Xtra 40Gb unit. I run it at least 8 hours
a day and sometimes more use it on my motorcycle for tunes and it just
keeps on ticking.

It has several Linux interfaces available for it, the most mature I
have discovered is gnomad.

--
gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

I wouldn't worry too much about ogg-ness.
I personally use ogg before mp3 (and god forbig wma) any day.
BUT, if you want to buy a cheap used mp3 player you don't need to bother
that much.
Instead you can cook up some script that re-encodes to mp3 and whatever
specific bitrate/normalization/equalization you want for your portable
player. I think that most mobile players have such relatively poor sound
quality compared to the normal hi-fi set that an audio stream quality
reduction is not so noticeable, and you'll get more tunes onto the device
if you encode them with less quality. Of course you can also modify the
stream to better suite the specific audio-feel of the portable this way.

The problem with non ogg devices as I see it is that since ogg sounds sooo
much better than mp3 at any given bitrate, oggless data tend to be larger.
Sad but true.

Harebrafolk
Jimmy



On Sunday 26 September 2004 06.22, Zhang Weiwu wrote:
> Hello. I never used a mp3 player before. Is mp3 players simply a umess
> device, like my cameras, or does them need a specific drive? I remember
> once I glance over all kernel devices, there was a "diamond" mp3 player
> drive, does this mean Linux kernel support this player better than
> others, and I should buy it?
>
> And is ogg player common on the market? I am considering buying a second
> hand product, does that mean I mostly won't get a ogg player?
>
> Thank you.
>
> --
> gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list


--
gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

On Sunday 26 September 2004 20:01, Jerry McBride wrote:
> I've Had excellent luck with CREATIVE MUVO and IAUDIO U2. Both are quite
> small and mount fine under linux.
I've had no luck at all with a 1.5Gb Creative Muvo^2, it's partition table is
too weird to mount any partition.

Azhdeen

--
gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

On Tue, 5 Oct 2004 21:45:04 +0200, Azhdeen wrote:

> I've had no luck at all with a 1.5Gb Creative Muvo^2, it's partition
> table is too weird to mount any partition.

Are you sure it has a partition table? I've got a couple on devices (one
an MP3 player) that put the filesystem on the device rather than a
partition. You need to mount with something like

mount -t vfat /dev/sda /mnt/somewhere


--
Neil Bothwick

Last yur I kudnt spel modjerater now I are won.