[GLLUG] linux friendly audio player

[Charles Ulrich]

I have to second this. All of iRiver's devices are superb. They
usually carry 3x as many features as an equivalent ipod but are half
the price. I have one of their 1GB flash-based players (the ifp-899)
and it plays MP3, OGG, WMA, has an FM tuner built-in, and can record
from the radio or a line-in jack. The thing is tiny and gets 40 hours
of life on one AA battery. The only downside to it is that it's not a
USB mass storage device, although there is a firmware upgrade that can
change this. I don't bother, though, because the Linux tools that can
talk to this player (including Amarok) do a good enough job.

Charles

On Dec 9, 2007 1:56 AM, Karl Schuttler <rexykik at gmail.com> wrote:
> I highly suggest getting the iriver h120 or h140. You can find them on
> ebay, but they aren't retail anymore. They natively work with linux,
> and you can also put rockbox on them (which I highly suggest). Very
> easy navigation, built in radio tuner and microphone (good quality),
> native ogg support, headphone in and aux out (optical and analog), aux
> in (optical and analog). Battery lasts a long time. I've had mine for
> quite a while with very few troubles. I think you will find it at a
> comparable price to the other players. If you buy a refurb'd model,
> often they come with a year warranty.
>
>
> On Dec 9, 2007 1:32 AM, Richard Houser <rick at divinesymphony.net> wrote:
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> > The first generation nano was fairly decent, but you would probably want
> > to put Rockbox on it.  I had used one for some time previously
> > (installed it for someone, then played around with it for several days
> > at a time) and it worked great.  When I went to buy a player, I looked
> > at a nano since I like the form factor and the click-wheel was better
> > than the controls on the sansa players.
> >
> > I actually ended up with an 8GB Nano (second gen).  That was a HUGE
> > mistake.  Apple still marketed it as a nano, but swapped out all the
> > guts from the earlier version and changed around the case (so most of
> > the accessories for the original nano don't fit properly).
> > Unfortunately, I didn't even notice that the hardware had changed until
> > I'd broken the seal (at that time, all the previous nano were
> > supported).  At that point, I was stuck.
> >
> > The 2nd-gen version won't run rockbox, and the Apple software is crap.
> > That does not support either flac or vorbis formats, and requires
> > special software on the machine used to add or remove songs.  On the
> > bright side, Amarok and a few other Linux applications can read and
> > write this database; the downside is that the database can get corrupted
> > from time to time and require a reload.  I've only seen the corruption
> > happen at runtime when using the device as a player (happened twice in
> > about 14 months), not when modifying songs.  By comparison, Rockbox and
> > other players will allow you to delete or modify songs from either the
> > filesystem or on the device itself.
> >
> > I also periodically have issues with the player freezing (although this
> > happens slightly less since I got the latest software updates).  When
> > this happens, you have to hard reset the machine and settings such as
> > the current playlist (not the main archive itself) and play history are
> > lost.  The lockups might be manageable for you though.  I average a
> > lockup maybe once every four hours of play-time.  To be fair, though,
> > when I play it, I tend to get an interruption that requires a pause
> > about once every half-hour or so.  The lockups seem to be more frequent
> > if the controls are actually in use versus the device just playing back
> > a list.
> >
> > Michael George wrote:
> > > I'm looking for a relatively inexpensive portable media player for my
> > > kids.  It needs to play nicely with linux, of course, and I'd like it to
> > > play ogg format audio.
> > >
> > > I don't need a fancy color touchscreen or anything, just a way to
> > > navigate to the audio tracks.
> > >
> > > What players to you members of the gllug list have?
> > >
> > > Thanks!
> > >
> >
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