Meneer R: Thank you! Very handy bit of info that. Where did you get it from? *runs away to see what else Rhythmbox/HAL can do that I didn’t know of…

Instead, we use libraries like MTP to sit between myriad devices and our front-end applications, so developers don’t have to keep reverse engineering different players. This standardizes access from apps to devices, which is good, but only a half measure. Unfortunately, it is only relatively recently that companies like Intel and now even ATI have opened their specs and standards to the “open” crowd.

Meneer R, that is pretty awesome trick! It’s a shame it is not easy for Average Joes (no gui, and they don’t get any clues that such solution exists in the first place). Some Gnome developer oughta take an AP to provide “mark this device as multimedia device” feature for Banshee/Rhythmbox!

Cheers

Simple things like this which have worked on Windows for years think Win 95 and 98 are the reason Linux cannot get a big hold on the desktop market. It’s one little thing, but then it’s another, and another and people get fed up with it. As much as I like Ubuntu, I’ve switched back to windows periodically due to the little things that add up to be a major annoyance.

Go to the usb-disc in nautilus
Right-click .. create file -> empty file
Then name that file: “.is_audio_player”
Notice the dot; its a hidden file!

Then you open that file in gedit and you put this into there:

audio_folders=MUSIC/
folder_depth=2
output_formats=audio/x-ms-wma,audio/mpeg

Off course you can change the music folder and the supported codecs.
Then if you remove the mp3-player/phone and add it again, you should see it in Rhythmbox.

Then when you drag music to that device from within rhythmbox it will automatically convert the file to the first supported codec, when the file is not natively supported by your device.

Hope this helps!

The only thing on it that might be bloat is the rightmost tab that is for commercial media shops - by default it has the MSN’s service. It is not Microsoft only though (you could actually even add those non-drm’d shops there if you wanted to and set them as default) and it never forces you there. I have found couple new artists from music genres that I don’t usually listen to thanks to that service as they have free songs constantly there.

Having a proper library for both types (video and audio) is a basic requirement nowadays. Having to start several applications to be able to send both to your mobile player is really bad for usability because those steps should not be required at all. Futhermore those applications act and work all slightly differently, and especially the workflows for video files are awkward, and especially when you’d like to synch them somewhere else.