Linux.Desktop.Hacks [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

Hack 98. Sync Your iRiver with Linux

Use Linux to copy your songs and create the
iRiver database.

Of the wide variety of "lifestyle"
items that
are competing for our disposable income, the personal music player is
one of the most popular. Although many of us can remember the
excitement of getting a personal cassette player when we were
younger, the latest incarnation of music on the move is fully
digital, and it can store your entire album collection.

A number of these personal music players are on the market, but one
of the most intriguing is the iRiver series. Not only do these little
boxes pack in upward of 40GB of storage, but they also support a
variety of different codecs beyond plain MP3. Some of you might be
aware that encoding MP3 is actually a legally foggy area, as the
codec was created and licensed by Fraunhoffer, and many free encoders
are not properly licensed. A free MP3 alternative called Ogg Vorbis
exists that promises both higher quality and smaller file size. This
format is gaining in popularity, and the iRiver, unlike the iPod,
supports it out of the box.

To get songs on your iRiver, you need to rip your CDs to get the
tracks onto the hard disk of your Linux machine, encode them as MP3
or Ogg Vorbis, and then upload them to the iRiver via USB.
Optionally, you can then build the iRiver internal database for your
MP3s (you cannot use the database for Ogg files). The iRiver IHP
series of players use a special internal database that stores all the
details of your song titles, albums, genres, and other information.
One issue to bear in mind is that the iRiver lacks support of Ogg
Vorbis tags. This means Ogg metadata will not be included in the
database. If you want to use ID tags (these tags store information
about the artist, album, track number, and so on), you need to rip
your songs as MP3s.

This hack does not cover how to rip songs, but a number of great
ripping tools are available, such as Grip, RipperX, KAudioCreator,
and Jack. Most of these tools are simple and intuitive to use.

11.8.1. Transfer the Songs to the iRiver

You can transfer songs to the iRiver by plugging it into one of the
USB ports on your computer. To transfer files, you need to ensure
that you have USB support compiled into your kernel, and then you
need to mount the device. These options are available in the kernel
configuration tool [Hack #88] in
the USB Support section. You should ensure that you have UHCU, UHCI
Alternate Driver, or OHCI selected, depending on the type of USB
support on your motherboard. You can find out which USB support you
have from your motherboard's manual. With the USB
support compiled in, you can mount the disk with the following
command:

foo@bar:~$ mount -t vfat /dev/sda1 /mnt/iriver

You will probably need to change the mount directory
/mnt/iriver to something that is relevant to
your system. Once it is mounted, if you look in
/mnt/iriver, you will see either an empty
directory if you have not uploaded any songs or a list of artist
directories if songs are already on the iRiver. Now you can copy over
files by using a file manager, such as Nautilus or Konqueror, or by
using the following command if your Metallica songs are in
/home/joeblogs/Metallica:

foo@bar:~$ cp -r /home/joeblogs/Metallica* /mnt/iriver

11.8.2. Rebuild the Database

The iRiver database is essential in terms of making the iRiver as
usable as possible. This database contains a detailed list of
artists, genres, albums, song lengths, track numbers, and more; many
of the features in the iRiver are available only if you have created
the database. You still can use the iRiver without the database, but
you can choose your songs and albums only via the clunky file manager
on the iRiver as opposed to its special menus. Unfortunately, the
installation CD does not come with a tool to build the database for
Linux, but a simple utility available on the Internet, called
iRipDB, can do the job. You can download
iRipDB from http://www.fataltourist.com/iripdb/.

Once you have downloaded the latest version of
iRipDB, unzip it onto your hard disk with this
command:

foo@bar:~$ tar xcvf iRipDB -x-x-x .tar.gz

Replace x-x-x with the actual version
number of the iRipDB program. You need to ensure
that you have the following libraries on your system before you
compile the code:

libid3

This library provides the use of ID3 tags in
songslibogg.

libvorbis

These libraries provide support for Ogg Vorbis files.

To compile the code, run the compilation script included with the
code. Move into the directory where the code is stored, and run this:

foo@bar:~$ ./compile.sh

When the program is compiled, you will have an executable in the
source directory called iripdb. Now you can run
this to rebuild the database:

foo@bar:~$ ./iripdb /mnt/iriver

The preceding command runs the iripdb command on
the directory where you mounted your iRiver. You can also use the
-e switch to include files that have not had tags
added to them:

foo@bar:~$ ./iripdb -e /mnt

To finish, you should unmount the device to ensure that all data has
been copied over completely:

foo@bar:~$ umount /mnt

Now full support for your iRiver is available on your system.
Although you will mostly listen to music on your iRiver, try copying
some text files onto the device. On the IHP series, you will find
that you can read them on the screen. This can be handy if you need
to carry around some notes or other text with you.