Re: Transferring music to MTP devices
On 02/04/13 12:22, Brendon Oliver wrote:
On Tue, Apr 2, 2013 at 10:15 AM, Toby Corkindale <toby.corkindale@strategicdata.com.au <mailto:toby.corkindale@strategicdata.com.au>> wrote:
Recent Android devices that run official firmware versions will only support MTP for file transfers.
Can the community suggest an alternative music manager that supports MTP devices that works cleanly?
I gave up wrestling with MTP to copy files to my Galaxy S3. Ended up installing SSHdroid on it and now just scp stuff over by hand. I found it seems to copy a a bit faster too than, eg, if I boot into windows to drag & drop files within explorer (but that's probably subjective).
Thanks for the suggestion. I could also use mtpfs, or adb push. However I'm specifically after an easy-to-use solution appropriate for someone who uses desktop environments. Cheers, Toby
Toby Corkindale <toby.corkindale@strategicdata.com.au> wrote:
Thanks for the suggestion. I could also use mtpfs, or adb push.
Yes, exactly, with shell wildcards, a find command or whatever is needed to transfer the files all at once.
However I'm specifically after an easy-to-use solution appropriate for someone who uses desktop environments.
I suppose you mean someone who uses desktop environments and who doesn't know shell commands well enough to perform the task (most people run desktop environments, even if only minimal ones and even if they spend much of their time at the shell prompt). Then add a stipulation that the user isn't willing to learn the said shell commands, despite the time that would be saved compared with manually selecting and transferring the files. for that kind of user, frankly, I'd recommend staying with Windows, OSX or whatever they're familiar with. This is not a criticism of Linux, implicitly or explicitly, just a recognition that different systems are best suited for different users and different use cases - and that's fine, in my view. I suppose I never joined the "let's make Linux suitable for non-technical end-users" crowd, for a variety of reasons, and so I don't judge the success of Linux on the basis of whether it ever succeeds in that role, which at this point it may not, except in the form of highly customized systems such as Android, or perhaps Plasma or Ubuntu for mobile and similar efforts if they gain hardware support. For people who want or need a good UNIX-like environment, whether on the desktop, laptop or server, it's great and will continue to be so, while providing all the advantages of being free software/open-source. It's also an excellent environment for new users to discover new and different ways of working, and those include the shell as well as all of the different desktop environments/window managers on offer and, in general, the great diversity that can be seen in any large Linux distribution - but it requires someone who is curious and willing to learn in order to benefit from that freedom and to make those choices. And yes, there probably is and should be a way to transfer those files from a graphical file manager - I'm not the best qualified to answer the question posed.
On 02/04/13 13:35, Jason White wrote:
Toby Corkindale <toby.corkindale@strategicdata.com.au> wrote:
Thanks for the suggestion. I could also use mtpfs, or adb push.
Yes, exactly, with shell wildcards, a find command or whatever is needed to transfer the files all at once.
However I'm specifically after an easy-to-use solution appropriate for someone who uses desktop environments.
I suppose you mean someone who uses desktop environments and who doesn't know shell commands well enough to perform the task (most people run desktop environments, even if only minimal ones and even if they spend much of their time at the shell prompt). Then add a stipulation that the user isn't willing to learn the said shell commands, despite the time that would be saved compared with manually selecting and transferring the files.
a) I'm not convinced it IS quicker to use the shell. When it comes to searching my library of music, I use rhythmbox because it's a lot faster to find and queue in a playlist using it, rather than command-line utilities and bash scripts. A LOT quicker. If I could just right-click on a list and say "send to device" *and have it work* I'd be a happy person. b) Regardless of whether the shell is superior or not -- it still shouldn't be this hard to have a simple MTP transfer work from a GUI! Having work-arounds for unix hackers isn't a valid excuse for putting MTP functionality into an app and then ignoring bug reports for over three years. I know, I know, I didn't pay anything for the app and can't reasonably expect any minimum level of functionality. It's just frustrating that it seems like there's barely any improvement from year to year. </rant>
Toby Corkindale <toby.corkindale@strategicdata.com.au> wrote:
b) Regardless of whether the shell is superior or not -- it still shouldn't be this hard to have a simple MTP transfer work from a GUI! Having work-arounds for unix hackers isn't a valid excuse for putting MTP functionality into an app and then ignoring bug reports for over three years. I know, I know, I didn't pay anything for the app and can't reasonably expect any minimum level of functionality. It's just frustrating that it seems like there's barely any improvement from year to year.
Then there are all the people who could have submitted a patch but didn't... so it seems that nobody cares enough to fix the bug. Maybe they're using something else instead. I always manage my audio files from the shell and I'll probably continue to do so. A friend once searched hard for a good music organizing tool under Linux but found nothing suitable. Suppose you have a collection of symphonies, string quartets, piano sonatas etc. Each track is a separate file, but three or four tracks, typically, constitute the entire work. Or consider an opera - divided into acts, scenes etc., and you need to be able to select those. The problem is that (as of a few years ago, at least, and according to someone who searched) there's no tool that will recognize the appropriate hierarchical levels in a music collection. That's a rather fundamental design flaw.
One of the more useful apps in Android is Airdroid. Copy a whole music folder across by WiFi with the cool web interface. On Apr 2, 2013 2:55 PM, "Jason White" <jason@jasonjgw.net> wrote:
Toby Corkindale <toby.corkindale@strategicdata.com.au> wrote:
b) Regardless of whether the shell is superior or not -- it still shouldn't be this hard to have a simple MTP transfer work from a GUI! Having work-arounds for unix hackers isn't a valid excuse for putting MTP functionality into an app and then ignoring bug reports for over three years. I know, I know, I didn't pay anything for the app and can't reasonably expect any minimum level of functionality. It's just frustrating that it seems like there's barely any improvement from year to year.
Then there are all the people who could have submitted a patch but didn't... so it seems that nobody cares enough to fix the bug. Maybe they're using something else instead.
I always manage my audio files from the shell and I'll probably continue to do so. A friend once searched hard for a good music organizing tool under Linux but found nothing suitable. Suppose you have a collection of symphonies, string quartets, piano sonatas etc. Each track is a separate file, but three or four tracks, typically, constitute the entire work. Or consider an opera - divided into acts, scenes etc., and you need to be able to select those. The problem is that (as of a few years ago, at least, and according to someone who searched) there's no tool that will recognize the appropriate hierarchical levels in a music collection. That's a rather fundamental design flaw.
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On 2/04/2013 6:55 PM, Andrew Greig wrote:
One of the more useful apps in Android is Airdroid. Copy a whole music folder across by WiFi with the cool web interface.
Thanks for the tip Andrew. Hadn't heard of Airdroid - will definitely have a play around with it. cheers, - Brendon
On Tue, 2 Apr 2013, Brendon Oliver <brendon.oliver@gmail.com> wrote:
One of the more useful apps in Android is Airdroid. Copy a whole music folder across by WiFi with the cool web interface.
Thanks for the tip Andrew. Hadn't heard of Airdroid - will definitely have a play around with it.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sand.airdroid I tried Airdroid some time ago but decided not to use it. It seemed more designed for newbies than experienced users so it might do a better job for some other people. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.theolivetree.ftpserver I'm now using the Olive Tree FTP Server. It is working well for me. It would be good if there was a way of running rsync or a file sharing protocol on Android that's not unreasonably difficult. I've only tried MTP in KDE and I found that it didn't work there. -- My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/
Toby Corkindale <toby.corkindale@strategicdata.com.au> wrote:
a) I'm not convinced it IS quicker to use the shell. When it comes to searching my library of music, I use rhythmbox because it's a lot faster to find and queue in a playlist using it, rather than command-line utilities and bash scripts. A LOT quicker. If I could just right-click on a list and say "send to device" *and have it work* I'd be a happy person.
Can it copy the selected files to a destination directory? If so, just mount the Android file system over the network, making sure the permissions allow you to write to it, and copy the files. In that case you only need one command or script to do the mounting.
participants (5)
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Andrew Greig -
Brendon Oliver -
Jason White -
Russell Coker -
Toby Corkindale