MP3 Player Purchase and Puppy

[Mic67]

Today I went to one of my favorite computer store
www.factorydirect.ca, see photo of mp3 player.

I have been using a CD player for music and thought I would get an mp3 player, I told the clerk that I wanted one to work with linux, for example drag and drop mp3 files on the mp3 player that would work like a flash drive. They didnt have anyting like that and most all required Windows to use these mp3 players, although he said that samsung use to, or did make such a device.

Is there a way to use these Windows only mp3 playser with puppy?

tia

Well while I was at the store I bought this 60inch tripod for $20 to take night images.

And I bought a memorex 256MB usb flash drive for $3 to see how it would work as a dedicated swap partition when using a 400 meg ram system with no HD.

Mic67

[Mic67]

Ok I have done some pretesting with using the 256mb usb as swap.

I have 3x 128 meg sticks of ram so 400 meg total of system ram
no harddrive
I formated the 256mb usb to linuxswap using Gparted
Puppy OS version Teenpup 1.0 (it was handy, it had gparted and gimp and laura and qcad - these apps - I opened at the same time while surfing and opening 10 pages of large sailboat images with the browser while on dilaup internet > all this was done to put a load on the computer and Puppy OS.

Then I observed the Red cpu gram and how many white line were going throught it - those which correspond to the request load or que to, or of the cpu? more white lines more requests or load - which anyhow slows the performance of the box, like it would without the swap.

I was trying to see if I could stall or hang the computer - that did NOT happen....

Ok now using teenpup 1.0 after booting I usually have about 187 ram showing in the task bar right after booting up. Now ithe the 256mb usb swap it showed about 117 ram right after boot up...humm... I thought that I would have had 187 ram + 256 = 443 ram right after boot up.

Ok Teenpup 1.0 was designed to be used as a HD install, so I will have to do this test with another version of puppy. But I can say that by having added the swap the white lines in the red cpu graph in the task bar was reduced and there was a noticable increase in system performance, under normal usage. Overall interersting and weird.

Has anyone else used a usb as swap with a standard puppy and if so what was the result and why do you use that system.

mic67

[Flash]

Mic67, I've used two different mp3 players with Puppy, one is an iRiver T10. I forget what the other one is but it's a well-known brand. Both appear to Puppy as a USB flash memory. I listen to audio books at work. I just mount the mp3 player and drag the Author folders with mp3 files into it. Both players recognize the folders and play the files in the correct order.

[brymway]

I have the Sansa Fuze. It works like the ones described above. Great little unit.

Maybe this will help.
http://anythingbutipod.com/

[Rickrandom]

The only MP3 player I have used is an iRiver s10. Works fine with Puppy, it just acts as an external drive.

[Pizzasgood]

I have an iAUDIO G2. Works like a usb-drive, and also supports ogg. It only had 1GB though. There is another model, the G3, which is very similar but has 2GB and an FM radio.

I have been very satisfied with it. After showing my sister how to use her own Creative mp3 player, I especially like the screen and interface on my iAUDIO. Hers pretty much just has one or two lines and is nearly unusable. Navagating the files is nasty! Mine is tall enough to show scrollable lists. It also lets you organize things in directories (you literally create directories on the drive and put your music in them, and you can navigate into them or opt to play the whole thing). Very easy and intuitive. It also supports playlists, but I've never used them. Just splitting things into directories based on genre is good enough for me. I get pretty good battery life too. It uses generic AA batteries, so no funny business with forgetting to charge it. I do like rechargeable-ness, so I use my own rechargeable AA batteries so I can just swap one out when they die.

[Mic67]

http://www.factorydirect.ca/catalog/pro ... ode=PH2025

"Detail Specifications: MAGNAVOX MSA2025 2GB MP3 PLAYER w/FM TUNER

Enjoy digital music with the Magnavox digital audio player MSA2025. Easily take your
favorite tunes on the go with Direct USB and enjoy 20 hours of playtime with just one
AAA battery.

FEATURES:

-Direct USB for easy file transfers without cables
-Equalizer for optimized sound to suit your music style
-Simply drag and drop your songs -- no software needed
-Enjoy MP3 and WMA playback
-Make voice recordings
-Plug and play data storage
-Fast downloads from your PC via USB 2.0
-Preset up to 20 FM radio stations for more music
-Up to 20-hour music playback"

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>..

Humm. just did a look up on this in the flyer (photo in original post)....

Drag and drop "no software needed".....there is no reason why this ought not work with linux.

BTW. Teenpup 1.0 had "pod"
the gtkpod application for "sync" to an Ipod.

Now a if you had an apple "ipod" then it seems such software is needed.

It just makes so much sense to have a simple drag and drop for a (cheap or any) flash drive mp3 player.

Also CD players are still popular because they are so low tech. I bought 2 - "Sony's" from the thrift store for $4.99 each on a half-off day sale with am/fm, a while ago and they are my daily drivers.

mic67

[Mic67]

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/wedding-even ... ver-2.html

"If the firmware is old then the IRiver will not show up as a removal drive (like any normal mp3 player, psp, usb drive, etc. does). You can upgrade the firmware to the latest but it will also drop the max recording rate from 320kbps to around 96kbps. I still run the old firmware and I cannot see mine as a removable drive (I can only access this via the IRiver software. Hope this helps."

Humm... kind of interesting thread on event videography.

Using the iriver mp3 recorder as a stand-alone audio recorder - like a wireless....it works because it is small enough - and ipod will work too.

[Mic67]

-Simply drag and drop your songs -- no software needed

http://www.factorydirect.ca/catalog/pro ... ode=PH2110

PH2110
Description : PHILIPS SA2110/37 1GB FLASH MP3 PLAYER
Manufacturer part code: SA2110/37

PHILIPS SA2110 1GB FLASH MP3 PLAYER

Enjoy your MP3 and WMA music on the move with the Philips SA2110. With direct USB
for fast and easy music and data transfer.

FEATURES:

-1GB storage capacity
-Make voice recordings
-Fast downloads from your PC via USB 2.0
-Enjoy up to 10 hours music playback
-Direct USB -- no cables needed
-Simply drag and drop your songs -- no software needed
-Plug and play data storage
-Easy-to-read black and white LCD display
-32 x 128 2-line LCD resolution
-Equalizer for optimized sound to suit your music style
-Folder view to find songs in a simple, fast way

[bc272]

I bought one of those inexpensive mp3 players similar to the ad picture shown above on this page. I bought mine from hong kong (china) seller on ebay, a lot of them on ebay. It was about $12 (1/2 of that was shipping), takes about 2 1/2 weeks even when paying with paypal to get from hong kong. Very good deal. Player has a USB connector to add songs from a computer.

I wanted to try it out and find it pretty good. It showed up in puppy but I had to specify the online mode (had to figure out how to use this thing by trial and error) and when into "settings" icon from top menu, then to "online mode," I set it to "multiple drives." Then it shows up easy on Puppy desktop as a flash drive. Hard to describe what I'm doing, it is as big as a usb flash drive, actually is one with 4 gb. You click the power button and then it gives you icon menu, the first one is to play mp3's that are on the flash drive, once started they play one after another automatically. It also has an FM tuner and a mic recorder that makes wmv sound files. When you want to turn off, hold power button down till it says "good bye."

My player gave me about 4 free songs so it would work out of the box. I since added some mp3's by opening the drive folder and just dragging them there from my download folder, that's it. Downloaded mp3's from the internet to mount home, then clicked the device on desktop to get its folder and dragged the mp3's to that folder (I could see the other ones there so seamed appropriate).

I'm over wordy here but will add a couple more discoveries. When ordering player, get one of these fm transmitters for putting mp3 sound on a radio, that from any electronic device with a headphone socket (plug in transmitter to that). I'm using the mp3 player and the transmitter I got from the same seller ($5 to $10). So I startup the player, plug in the transmitter, tune any FM radio to 875 FM (or variety of settings it offers) and I get the mp3's on the old radio, clear as a bell CD quality. That I really like. Now have to figure out what mp3's to buy on internet.

From what I understand some of these mp3 song sellers offer a monthly service, instead of paying a lot to purchase songs outright. I haven't studied that very much yet but found interesting article on murga linux that discusses Gnomad2 that makes destination of service (making this up some here) into a windows media like device with this software, making compatible with service:
http:///www,murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=21961

That's where I'm at now, hope this helps.